#i feel like i need to make a compilation of all the wonderful things matt comes out with in interviews

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

arctic monkeys with MTV, 2011 (x)

[icypantherwrites]

Was hoping to be able to ask this on anon because I’m shy haha, but my favorite character was Pidge and I absolutely love your writing and was wondering if there was a compilation of any of your Pidge-centric works anywhere? I was super into Voltron years ago and now there are. A lot of fics to sort through 😅 no pressure or anything, just curious to know if there is something like that!!!

Sorry about the anon asks, but I had to turn them off as too many people used them to send me really awful messages (as you can see below they still do it on AO3 >>) and I just couldn't deal with that any more.

To your query though, I actually used to try to keep an updated archive of all my works sorted by character on Tumblr and embarrassingly I cannot find it (but it hasn't been updated since at least 2021 so it's super outdated), so I've done my best to remember all of my Pidge-centric works (most she's the whumpee, but some she's just heavily involved in the story/Pidge emotional angst or character-centric or Pidge&another character relationship moment) but I hope this might help. There's a few unmentioned type "snippet fics" from my Patreon that exist but are not listed as no summary for them. If you check any of them out and have a moment would love to hear from you in the comments on the fic what you thought ♥

In no particular order:

Human Nature -- this is a series of the following three works:

What it Means to be Human: Pidge had always taken pride in the fact she’d been told her mind was like a machine. She just… Never expected to find out that it actually was. Or; Alternate Universe Fic where Pidge discovers she’s an android and begins a journey to find what being human really means.

Interlude: What Makes Us Different (But Also Human): Where Pidge and Keith discuss what about their heritages of android and Galran are the same, different, and discover how truly human they actually are.

Made With Love Pidge has come to terms with the fact she is an android, but she still has questions. And the only people that can answer them are the ones who have known her for her entire life. It’s time to find both Matt and her dad and learn the truth about what happened to her.

"I Am a Fighter"

Summary: The Galra capture Pidge and present her with a choice. Either she makes the weapon they want… or someone dies. Pidge prides herself on her genius, on her logic. But this? This is not a choice. This is torture. She’s being forced to decide if the universe’s fate outweighs the lives of a few individuals and no one, no one, should be allowed to make that call. She has to though. Again and again.

But when a familiar face is dragged before her she can feel her resolve crumbling. Because Keith is not a nameless prisoner. He is her friend, her family. And yet his blood is already dripping from her hands.

A Broken Arm For a Broken Soul 

Summary: Shiro is breaking. Pidge can see it: the exhaustion, the pain, and the growing, splintering cracks. And while Pidge doesn’t know how to fix broken people she does know how to fix broken things. And Shiro’s prosthetic arm the Galra forced upon him is a broken thing. She doesn’t know how much it will help, but… but maybe, if she can fix that then Shiro won’t be quite so broken anymore.

A Needed Distraction

Summary: Mini fic of Lance giving gifts to each team member, Pidge's chapter :)

Koala Hugs (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary: They’d been told that the guest houses were supposed to keep them safe from the deadly low temperatures of the planet. And while for Pidge that is indeed the case, she learns it’s not so for Lance as she’s awoken by a projection of pure terror from the Blue Lion, who can sense her Paladin dying. And now as Pidge hurries to Lance’s guest house and finds him so so cold and still, she can only hope she’s not too late.

Battle Scar

Summary: Scars can cut deep and not just physically into the skin. Pidge finds herself forced to confront a memory when Lance catches sight of a scar she had previously kept hidden. But maybe… maybe this is for the best.

Always 

Summary: Pidge and Lance are on an undercover mission to retrieve supplies they desperately need for their journey back to Earth. Despite the odds everything seems to be going in their favor; Lance is charming the local gang and Pidge is hidden away as backup and they are this close to calling it a success.

And then everything goes wrong.

Not only are the gang members now hunting them, Lance has been poisoned and its affecting his memory. Pidge somehow has to keep them both alive until rescue comes, a feat made more difficult by the minute as Lance forgets first short term details, then the mission, and now... now he’s forgotten her. But no matter what happens Pidge knows she’ll protect Lance and he will protect her. Always.

Pidge + Stitches (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary: “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

The question came out shriller than Pidge wanted but she wasn’t able to ask it any other way as Keith lit a fucking huge metal needle on fucking fire that he planned to put through her skin next to her.

Stardust:  In You and In Me (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary: Pidge is so tired. She can’t sleep though, not until she finds something. Her family is out there, but no matter how hard she tries, no matter how hard she searches, she can’t find them. The universe is just too big. Coran gently disagrees.

Crash and Burn 

Summary: Lance and Pidge crash the supply pod following a freak asteroid storm. And Lance... Lance is hurt. Badly. He's bleeding out and there's no time to wait for rescue. Pidge has to save him. And the emergency flare... Well, it's the only thing she's got.

Red Where it Belongs (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary: How much blood, Pidge faintly wondered, had she lost now? What percentage? The human body couldn’t lose more than forty percent of its blood before death occurred and hypovolemic shock symptoms started around fifteen percent.   She stared at her blood covered hands, at the puddle growing around her, feeling the way everything was going numb and made her guess.   At least twenty percent.   Twenty percent more to go.

Ready to Be a Dragon - (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary:  Lance is a Shifter. He’s familiar with many forms, has his favorites, but there’s one that stands above the rest: a dragon. And with Pidge’s magic that dream has now come true. But what should have been a perfect day of soaring through the skies with Pidge to celebrate his new form comes to a screeching halt when a band of soldiers spots them and wants the glory of slaying a dragon. And even though Lance isn’t technically a dragon… they aren’t going to take no for an answer.

Birthday Wishes

Summary: Pidge blinked. She blinked again. The date remained the same. Today… today Matt would be twenty-five. Her eyes widened with horror. Was, she frantically corrected herself. Matt was twenty-five today. Because he was alive. He had to be.

A Day at the Beach 

Summary: A day at the beach takes a terrifying turn when Pidge falls victim to a deadly allergic reaction. Now the only question that remains is what will kill her first: anaphylaxis or the ocean?

Break It 

Summary: Don’t be scared, Pidge told herself. That was the most important thing. The constant clanking and tugging and crying all around her was very detrimental to that plan. So too were the shackles digging into her ankles and wrists, linking her to every other person on the chain of slaves, that sent her constantly stumbling as they abruptly stopped and started.

Chase Away the Nightmares

Summary: Pidge is hurt. She’s hurt bad. And yet there’s nothing much Lance and Hunk can do. They’re stranded in the middle of a warzone on a hostile planet and help isn’t coming for a long while. No matter what though they will protect Pidge. They’ll keep her from further harm; from the aliens, from injury and even from her own nightmares as her head wound blurs reality and fiction. And maybe, hopefully, soon the nightmare will be over for them all.

Plummet 

Summary: They’re dangling off of a cliff where falling means certain death. And while Shiro’s grip is strong on Pidge’s hand the cliff face is weak. And now time has finally run out.

Scavenger Hunt

Summary: The team has returned to the Space Mall but shopping isn’t what’s on Lance and Pidge’s minds. They’ve got something better planned: a scavenger hunt. It’s a battle of the stealthiest and Lance is the cool ninja sharpshooter so he’s got this in the bag. Right…?

As the World Falls Down Around Us 

Summary: Ever since Pidge revealed she was a girl her team seems to have become a bunch of overprotective, overbearing idiot males and it’s pissing her off. She’s still the same person and more than capable of taking care of herself. But in her determination to prove herself independent she winds up injured. Badly. She can handle it on her own though. She doesn’t need their help.

But hiding her injury has dire consequences and now it’s not just her freedom at stake but her life.

And Lance’s.

The world is falling down literally and figuratively around them and Pidge realizes she can’t save him alone. She needs help. Lance’s help. And as dire as the situation is there’s almost something optimistic about being trapped at the bottom: the only place to go is up.

Now if they can only reach it before time runs out.

Finding the Light (series of following two fics, TW for rape)

Sit Beside You: "I'm fine," Pidge repeated, as though trying to convince both herself and Lance. "I am. Nothing's wrong. I'm okay. I…" Her hands were trembling and she tucked them beneath her arms in the most pathetic looking hug Lance had ever seen. "I'm fine. It's over. I'm fine. Not a mark. So nothing happened. I'm fine." / Pidge is not fine. None of them are. But hopefully, eventually, they will be.

Right, Wrong and the Normal In Between: Pidge didn’t want to think about it. She knew better now than to deny that it had happened or that she was fine but all she wants is for things to be normal again. But normal is a concept that keeps getting further away. Pidge realizes just how far out of reach it is when she freezes in battle and memories distort reality. Everything is wrong. Nothing is right. But Allura doesn’t think it’s so black and white. There are a lot of steps in between and she’s going to help Pidge walk that path and find her way once more.

Rivers Stain the Ocean - (Patreon Exclusive)

Summary: When Lance messes with Pidge’s color coding system the only thing to do is retaliate in kind.   So she dyes him completely blue.   It’s harmless though, will wear off in a few days, and the experience will teach Lance to never touch her stuff again. A win-win if Pidge does say so herself.   Except for the part where the planet they visit the following day to form an alliance has this whole thing about a prophecy and being cursed and deceived by a being of blue. And in order to save both their planet and Voltron...   They’re going to kill Lance.

What Makes a Team

Summary: Lance has been feeling a little lonely of late. Allura’s off with Lotor, Shiro’s been keeping busy on his own and Hunk and Pidge are wrapped up in this whole “Team Punk” concept that has them holed up for hours in the lab. So when he’s invited to accompany the two geniuses on a resource gathering mission he couldn’t be happier and plans to make the best of it.

And then everything goes wrong.

They’re trapped, injured, and if blood loss doesn’t get Lance first then suffocation definitely will. They need a plan but Hunk is down for the count and Lance knows he’s no good for coming up with something of that caliber. But his team needs him and he’s got to think of something. Otherwise… this cave is about to become a tomb.

Inches From Death

Summary: Being captured by the Galra is a lot less frightening than Pidge thought it would be. It’s boring, really. Well, until Lance slowly starts suffocating to death inches from her and she can do nothing to save him. Now… Now it’s terrifying.

A Squeak in the Code 

Summary: Despite the late hour Pidge has no plans to sleep until she finishes running her current algorithm. Four determined little space mice have a very different plan in mind.

Crimson Shock 

Summary: What should have been a routine mission takes a terrifying turn when Pidge is injured. She’s trying not to be scared because it’ll make Hunk more so and she needs him not to be but it hurts so much and the world is growing dark and she is so so scared.

Give Me a Sign

Summary: Matt isn’t sure why he was targeted for a ransom request. He wasn’t a nobody in the Rebels but he wasn’t a somebody either. What did these aliens think the Coalition would offer for him? But as the transmission turned on Matt got his answer. Because those weren’t Rebels on the screen. It was Katie.

Heavy is the Toll of War (series of following two fics)

The Cost of Winning: "The Blue and Green Paladins serve no purpose to the Empire," the Galran commander smirked at his bound captives. "And as such you have no use except as arena fodder." He chuckled. "Give us a good show before you die." / Lance is determined to protect Pidge and save her from the arena. She will not die here. Over his dead body. Hopefully it's not quite that literal of a promise.

The Price of Peace: They may have escaped the arena but things back home are far from all right. Keith is struggling. Shiro is hiding. Lance is suffering violent flashbacks and she's having nightmares too. It's wrong. It's all wrong. Pidge hates it. She wants her space family back. Not this broken version of them. It looks like she's just going to have to fix it. And Lance is going to help.

Over the Edge (my very first VLD fanfic ever :))

Summary: It was supposed to be a simple nature hike. What it turned into was anything but. And now Pidge and Lance are just hoping they can make it back alive.

"Pidge!" came a scream. And before she could even process that she was falling, that she was going to die, a dark hand shot over the edge and wrapped bruisingly about her wrist, but she had never been so grateful to be in pain. Lance's panicked face met hers, although there was a steely glint of determination that so, so many overlooked. "I've got you," he panted, throwing his other arm forward and grabbing even more of her arm. "It's going to be okay."

A Sister In (My) Arms

Summary: Pidge is fevered, fatigued, and yet somehow here she is climbing almost a thousand stairs for the good of the Coalition. But she isn’t doing this stupid ceremony for the stupid Coalition. She’s doing it for Allura. And Allura will be there to catch her when she finally falls.

Trick or Treat 

Summary: Pidge (gently drags) Keith with her to go trick or treating at the Garrison sponsored Halloween event. But what is supposed to be all in good fun takes a dark turn when they realize that someone is following them…

Burnt French Toast

Summary: Every Mother’s Day per tradition Pidge and Matt make their mom practically inedible French toast and are then saved by the local bakery. But there’s no bakery this time. Just burnt French toast. And after three years of missed Mother’s Days, of leaving without answers and causing their mom even more pain, Pidge is horrified that this was all they could do.

Stabbing Pain 

Summary: Where Shiro jumps in front of a spear to save Pidge, gets impaled, and insists he is all right as he’s very painfully bleeding out.

Follow You Home 

Summary: Voltron is heading home. Except, for Keith, the destination of Earth isn’t his home, not really. There’s no one waiting for him there. And, he tries to tell himself, that it’s not like the space family he'd made up here with Voltron would abandon him as they go seek out their own loved ones on Earth. But he’s so used to being left behind, forgotten, why should this time be any different? Fortunately, Pidge is right there to remind Keith just how much he belongs with all of them.

[morningsound15]

there’s so much beauyasha to mention in 126 and it cannot all possibly be mentioned (bless whoever made this compilation video) but here are some highlights for ME

yasha going out of her way to buy that anti-scrying cream to try and protect them from being scried on was just so sweet. i mean maybe she got swindled who can say but all she wanted was true, legitimate privacy with beau and that’s precious of her. yasha almost never buys vanity items so i love that she wanted to do this, like she REALLY wanted that (1,000 gold!)

veth/beau. gosh what a scene. love sam always, ik that’s controversial because some people feel like he trolls too much & has been undercutting the beauyasha of it all but no honestly love his vibes he always brings humor and heart to his scenes and he always makes me laugh and this one with beau was so sweet & genuine & helpful, veth bought beau a flower to give to yasha that’s so wholesome. and beau wanting to wear a bowtie omg…

“i’m going into this with no expectations and on yasha’s terms and her timeline” MS. MARISHA RAY said we drink our ‘respect our traumatized potential romantic partner’s boundaries’ juice in this house

“i could be likable. *deep breath* yeah. i could” oh beau you sweet sweet bebe

love how much the m9 want this date to happen. caleb orchestrating everything, veth’s pep talk with beau, everything jester and fjord have said to them in the past episodes (esp jester encouraging them to be open about their feelings the whole poem scene my god), then of course caleb and cad shoving them into the tower together like ‘no y’all are going on this date please have a moment of happiness’ -- because like… they wouldn’t, you know? they both probably feel like it’s selfish to take that time if something else is more pressing. if they needed to go back to cad’s home or if they needed to use up those higher level spells they would have let it happen and never objected. like it’s sad because of course both of them deserve love and deserve to take even just one evening to not be scared for their lives, but mostly just warms my heart because of their love for the group. they’ll de-prioritize themselves if they have to (the beauyasha date getting postponed was basically its own meme at this point) or if it’s necessary and they’ll never complain about it, because that’s just the kind of gals they are. so so so so so glad that the mighty nein are like ‘no stop it go and do this you useless lesbians’ i love them for that

laura bailey fully ducking under her table when yasha doesn’t know that beau wants to hold her hand was me in that moment too

liam’s panting dachshund faces — enough said. everything about the doggies made me so happy, love that beau/marisha thought of that because ashley/yasha literally must scritch every dog she sees

i love ashley’s face as she gets drawn deeper and deeper into beau’s wooing of yasha it is just so wholesome the whole date and all the work put into it clearly just means so much to her and she deserves it!! yasha deserves it (and so does ashley!) and so does beau and bless marisha and liam for making it happen i’m so happy for them

beau: “when i was in kamordah, that fear of losing this family… i almost sabotaged it. just so that i wouldn’t have to deal with the angst and the anguish of wondering if and when and how this family will fall apart. like ripping off a band-aid that was never there. i guess over a wound that was never there. just tried to rip it off for the pain, and nothing else.” yasha, whispering: “yeah. that’s relatable.” (followed by: *laura aggressively mouthing ‘kiss!!!’*)

yasha: “i’m so scared to lose everyone. i don’t want to lose anyone, because i don’t know if i could survive that again.”

“i fell in love with you in kamordah” *swoon*

yasha: “you blow me away” beau, soft as a breath: “feeling’s mutual”

beau: “that’s why you’re my favorite” *intense blushing* yasha: “who me?”

fucking WING FLYING KISS PLEASE MS. JOHNSON i am only human

‘claim the rest of the night with me?’ is such a specific sweet way of phrasing that... marisha’s mind…

beau: “hey.” yasha, whispering back: “hey.” beau: “i love you too” and then ashley’s FACE god damn it

stained glass window hand holding is extremely gay caleb thank you for making it happen

another thing that strikes me is how generous matt was this whole episode. i mean he always is really, he’s always rooting for them, but this time he really was just like “you’re leading the charge and i’m just here for the ride” like breaking all the rules of combat and everything he really said “i’m gonna give the gays everything they want” and i love him for it

[luckycheesefoodie321]

Interceptor (2022) aka Matthew Reilly’s first turn in the director’s chair

Did it feel like a Matthew Reilly film? Yes. Every inch of it. Especially that opening exposition about nuke flight times and interceptors… deffo felt like I was reading a classic MR novel.

Did that mean, as a consequence, some of the dialogue I might forgive in his books felt obscenely clunky in the movie? Also yes. Some of the lines in this just felt so wasteful and delivered so poorly.

Everything about the scenes involving the president and her advisors just was weird and uncomfortable. The line about “half think you’re insane. Half think you’re a rockstar. Luckily I’m in the latter half” and when the President just immediately started making threats to Kessel and cursing him out and not even attempting a diplomatic approach or negotiation was just so left field and unprofessional and just clunky… I wouldn’t have minded the game theorist lines if they’d been trying to like micromanage JJ’s moves and then she finally snapped and had her whole “you haven’t been beaten and shot at. I’m pretty fucking motivated so screw your 14%”… but they kinda were just like “hey we got smart people here. Game theorists. Here to support you gurl!” The 14% would’ve felt way more earned then…

Bc like the whole thing was about her being horribly persecuted for speaking out against sexual assault by a high ranking officer… and other men in the army exploiting old pics of herself… and Kessel’s whole deal was mansplaining the corruption of America and the 1% (as a white male that is part of the 1%)… and if they just piled on to the whole administration trying to control the situation from far away and compiling that annoyance and frustration that she could almost sympathise or at least recognise the validity behind Kessel’s (extremely patronising) monologue… AND THEN STILL DO THE RIGHT THING BY HER COUNTRY… and then finding out dude wasn’t as self-righteous he claimed and was doing it for money and to get rescued… could’ve been v powerful is all I’m saying

All that said, I recognise that this film clearly had a smaller budget, they couldn’t switch between multiple sets and make for more complex scenes and moments in a physical sense so there seemed to be a lot of front loading in trying to keep the focus on JJ…

I really did enjoy this film. Am I critical of it? Yes. But I enjoyed the dynamic between JJ and Kessel. Felt reminiscent of Die Hard, though not as compelling. Maybe a little too much immediate buddy vibes bc it felt like they’d team up rather than be engaged foils that acknowledge each other’s skill and merit but are forced to do battle… like their first convo was a lil too casual considering he merc’d her commanding officer… but they had good banter and back and forth and I appreciated how they tried to read each other’s next moves…

Do I wanna see Matthew Reilly direct more? Yes absolutely. This was clunky but given the parameters he’s working with and it’s his first time directing, I am hoping he can really take from this experience the highs and lows and eventually get himself a Michael Bay budget that he’d always dreamed of… and then just go all out. But his screenplay writing needs a little work. Hit some kinda cliche beats but they only feel cliche bc it’s a movie thoroughly saturated in all of MR’s fave things…

and eventually I wanna see him direct his own Action Thriller adaptation of Ice Station or an Action Adventure of Seven Ancient Wonders… so I’m taking this first venture as a nice stepping stone. A bit of a brain off action movie with a nice straight through line plot…

Also Elsa Pataky and her goddamn arms???? Magnificent. Even with the clunky dialogue I enjoyed her acting. And her fight choreo was great. I wish they’d reduced her husband’s cameos to the one at the start bc it kept taking me out of the film bc all I saw was Thor trying to sell tv’s…

Also also Matt. JJ Collins. JJ Wickham??? Sea Ranger??? Pirate??? Submarine??? The dots are connecting…

[passionate-hedgehog]

Break Even

AN: The was initially supposed to be an Ian x Reader fic but WHOOPS. This fic took me the longest to write out of any one-shots I’ve ever written. If you like this (or any of my other fics) you can leave a request. They’re always open!

Pairings: (fem)Reader x Courtney, OC x Ian

Word count: 4513

Warnings: Some fucks were given. 

m.list

Y/n crouched behind the half wall with her partner in crime. Their targets were visible as they talked at the magazine counter. Y/n was trying to listen in on the distant conversation as the woman next to her kept burping. 

“Sorry, Y/n.” The other woman said. 

Y/n just waved off the apology. Her mission was still in motion and she wasn’t about to give it up anytime soon. She could see her goal coming to fruition shortly...she could almost touch it. 

“It’s getting late, Y/n. I have to be up super early and so does Ian. Besides, didn’t you say that your sister had a flight in the morning?” 

Y/n sighed. “Yeah, you’re right Courtney. Let me text Emma and pull her away without Ian seeing either of us.”

The woman took out her phone from her denim jacket pocket and began typing out a message to strategically extract her sister from the situation they were in. In the middle of her typing, she felt a hand on her arm.

“Is...is that my jacket?” Courtney forced Y/n to face her fully. “The one I misplaced a year ago and you claimed you had no idea where it went?”

Y/n didn’t look at her as she kept her phone out in an effort to seem too distracted to care. “No. Why would I still have any of your things? What’s the point of holding on to a broken-”

“Hey. Any reason why you asked me to stop talking to that super cute guy over there?” Y/n’s sister asked as she walked up to the other two girls. “We were having a wonderful conversation.”

Y/n began to pull her sister away by the arm. “You have a flight to catch in the morning. Let’s get back to my apartment to make sure you’re all packed and ready to go, yeah?”

Courtney watched them go with a disappointed expression.

Y/n listened to her sister talk on the phone to the people at the airline while she sat at the table with her cereal and orange juice. Apparently, Emma had been moved to a different flight without asking to be and the people on the other end of the phone were not helping matters.

“But that’s just it, I didn’t call to reschedule my original flight. I wanted to double-check my departure time and when I looked it up, it said that my flight had been rescheduled per my request. But I didn’t reschedule it!! Why would I reschedule my flight?! I have to go back to work.” She paused. “No, I need to get put back on the flight I was originally scheduled for. It’s the one I paid for. I didn’t ask to be moved. That’s not on me. I have a job to go to!”

The younger sister stayed silent as she watched her sister try to fix the problem she found herself in. It wouldn’t be an awful thing if Emma stayed an extra day or two, Y/n felt. It could be nice having someone else in the apartment. It got too quiet sometimes.

Y/n looked up when she noticed her sister took a seat across from her own. “So, what’s the verdict?”

The older sister put her head in her hands. “Can I stay an extra day or two? They’re refunding me but I can’t get on a flight for another few days. I truly hope my boss will give me the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know how I ended up in this situation, but here I am. Stuck in L.A.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We can do more things now that you’re gonna be here for a few more days. I feel like I don’t get to see you enough as it is. I miss my big sister.” The girl gave a pout.

“Aw, I miss you too. It’s weird not having you back home. Like, I fully realize that you’re a grown-ass adult but you’re still my baby sister. Just...not as annoying as you used to be. What, with all of your meddlings and getting into my things.” Emma smirked and Y/n laughed.

“Speaking of meddling, why don’t you come to work with me today? Check out what I do and stuff?” Y/n got up to put her dishes in the sink and started her tea kettle.

“How soon are you headed out?”

Y/n looked at her stovetop clock before responding. “Eh. In less than an hour.”

Emma stood up and walked towards the guest room she had been using during her stay. “Guess I better get ready so I can go see what my little sister does for a living. And then judge it harshly.”

The two had been in Y/n’s office for a couple of hours when Emma asked why it seemed so quiet.

“The cast is on location to film a sketch. They probably won't be back until later, if they come back at all. I work on unscripted content, so I’m not typically on the location shoots.” Y/n was typing something on her laptop as she replied.

“Didn’t you say you had a meeting in a few minutes?”

“Oh, frick! Oh my God.” The PA quicklu looked through her things and grabbed her needed materials. “It shouldn’t last for too long. I’ll order us lunch as soon as possible. There are some funny compilation videos that fans made that I’ve been watching already loaded up on my desktop if you want to see more of the people I work with.”

Y/n ran out of her office and across the building to the conference room. As she approached the room, she noted that the meeting hadn’t started yet and there were still a few people missing. She walked in and took a seat next to Matt Raub. Y/n discovered that the closer she sat to him, the less he called on her for things. He was on his laptop, probably going over the notes for the meeting. She took out her materials and got ready for what would hopefully be a short conference. 

“Hey, Y/n.” Ian greeted as he walked into the room. “The front desk said you have a visitor today?”

The woman looked up from her notes from the previous meeting. “Yeah. My sister was supposed to fly back home today but something happened to her flight details and she's staying with me for a few more days. I hope it’s okay that she’s here. I’m not working on any shoots today so I thought she could visit and see what I do.”

“Yeah, that’s completely fine. We’re getting lunch after this. You should bring her with. Let us know more about you. And hey, if she’s cute…” The president of Smosh let his sentence drift off as he opened his laptop.

“Who’s cute?” Matt Raub looked up from his laptop as he finally joined in the conversation while the rest of the unscripted team filled in the room.

                “Nothing, no one.” Y/n quickly replied as she waited for someone to officially start the meeting.

When the meeting finally ended, Ian reminded everyone that lunch was being brought into the break room and it was up for grabs. Y/n exited the room and made her way back to her office intending to convince Emma to eat anywhere that wasn’t there. What she didn’t expect to see was Courtney sitting in one of her chairs, chatting with Y/n’s older sister.

“It was really good to see you yesterday. I wish we would have had more time to hang out.” Emma finished once she noticed Y/n standing in the doorway.

The woman appeared to ignore the actress sitting in her personal space. “Hey, Emma, let’s go out and grab some lunch. I’m craving tacos.”

“I thought you guys were having lunch in the breakroom? I know Ian had ordered stuff.” Courtney mentioned but shrunk in her seat once she felt the heat coming from Y/n’s glare. 

“Yes, thank you, Courtney. I had completely forgotten that. That is also an option. It’s up to you, Emma. Go out or stay in?”

Unsure about what was going on in the room, Emma replied with “I know you’re busy today. I don’t mind staying in so you can get more stuff done. Besides, it’s free, right? What’s better than that?”

“Literally anything, but you’re right. I should be responsible.” Y/n rubbed her forehead, she could feel a headache brewing. “Let’s head to the break room. You can meet my co-workers and work your magic. Maybe you can network and find yourself a new job here instead of back home? Be with your favorite little sister more often…”

Emma laughed as she stood up and the two left the room, having completely ignored Courtney. “You’re the one that was so desperate to leave home, Little Sister. I’m perfectly content with where I am. Maybe you should network yourself back home?”

Y/n stopped them before they entered the break room and gave her sister a deadpan expression. “You got jokes, I’ll give you that. My bosses are in here but they know you’re here. They sound like they genuinely want to meet you. Don’t embarrass me. I beg of you.”

The two walked in and were greeted by the sight of the unscripted production team socializing with each other. There was a mixture of people around laptops, which were probably being used by those that were trying to work through lunch. Except for Ian’s laptop though, of course. He, Matt Raub, and Monica seemed to be laughing at something on the screen. It worked out in Y/n’s favor, though, because she didn’t want to go through what Courtney went through. While yes, Ian would never take a joke too far with anyone on purpose, she wasn’t about to give him the chance to even try. She grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled her to the table that held the food. She signaled for Emma to fill her plate and they picked an unoccupied section of the room to sit and eat at.

Y/n was quietly digging into her food when one of the writers came up and asked for her opinion on something. After making Emma promise that she wouldn’t do something...older-sister-like (wander off and tell embarrassing stories about Y/n’s youth), she joined the writer at his laptop and helped him out. A few moments later and Y/n caught Ian and Emma in a conversation that had them giggling. She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the sight. It made her feel...weird? She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.

“I don’t know who that is that Ian’s talking to, but it’s nice to see? Isn’t it?” The writer asked while also watching the two from across the room.

Y/n looked at him with an eyebrow cocked. “That’s my older sister. He’s going to make it weird.”

He nodded in understanding. “Like with Courtney’s sister. I get it. But you have to admit, Y/n, they both look decently happy.” 

“Yeah…” The woman muttered. “Frick.”

Y/n invited Emma back to the office the next day. The older sister almost declined, she needed a little bit more excitement in her day. Not that she minded a chill day every once in a while, but she didn’t want to do nothing again.

“No, today is going to be completely different. We have to film some things. Plus. you were requested to join a SMOSHcast recording if you want to. No pressure. It might be something fun to do? I don’t know why I said that as a question. It’ll for sure be fun. I've been on a few.” Y/n was pouring her tea into a SMOSH thermos to begin her day.

Emma sat at the kitchen table, half-eaten toast with peanut butter plated in front of her, thinking it over. “Hmm...on one condition.”

The producer cast a skeptical eye. “What?”

“You can’t get mad at me when I talk to Courtney.” Emma continued even though her sister had dramatically groaned. “She was a big part of your life. We’ve always been able to get along. I know that the two of you didn’t have the best ending in your relationship, and I’ll always support you. But Courtney and I have always been able to talk easily. It’s a little hard to turn a complete one-eighty. I haven’t seen either of you in person since before you guys broke up. It’s got to catch up with me. Please, just...give me a minute to get my feet on the ground. I’m not like you. You’re so much more fierce with how you handle the people around you. You love hard and if someone ruins that love, you nip them in the bud as soon as you can. I’m not like that.”

Y/n leaned against the kitchen counter as she crossed her arms and nodded, pondering what Emma was saying. “Yeah. I guess that’s why I like you so much. You’re more forgiving than I am to those that hurt those around me.”

Emma took a deep breath at her sister's words. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Y/n quickly walked over to her sister and threw her arms around her shoulders. “Don’t be! I wasn’t saying that like ‘Oh, Emma never has my back.’ I meant it like, in a general sense. Like you know when to give someone more chances, but you don’t give too many. You know when to forgive and move on. You know how to separate past heartbreaks from the rest of your life, even if you work with them.”

“You can’t avoid her forever, Y/n. It’s like you said, you work with her. The two of you need to have a mature adult discussion and put it all behind you. I don’t think she realizes how much you’re still hurting over this.” 

Y/n released Emma and moved back over to the counter to grab her morning beverage. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But first, I gotta leave before I’m late. I should have been in the car already. If you’re going to come with me, be in the car in ten.”

The two women walked onto the SMOSHcast set, not late enough to where they were already still recording, but late enough to warrant the jokes by the others. Ian was at the head of the table, being the host as usual. Courtney was next to him, much to Y/n’s demise. Emma took the seat next to Courtney to ease her baby sister’s mind, with Y/n taking the end. After they were fitted with headphones and set up with mic stands, they explained to Emma how things were going to go. Then everything went from there.

“Welcome back to another SMOSHcast.” Ian started.

Courtney chimed in with “anotha one”, which caused some giggles. 

“Yes,” Ian continued. “That was the magnificent Co Mill.”

“Tis’ I. The actress of the table,” She greeted. 

“And we have a special guest today. Well, we have two special guests. But one’s more…”

“I swear to God, Ian. If you say something along the lines of “more important” then I will get my revenge during a Pit video.” Y/n jokingly glared at her boss.

“Well, let’s start with you then. Today, we have Y/f/n Y/l/n, a producer for unscripted content here at SMOSH. She’s great. Even when she’s threatening me. She’s still pretty chill.” Ian looked from Y/n to Emma. “And then our extra special guest is Y/n’s older sister, Emma. She’s not on youtube, or in the industry, but there’s a very specific reason why I asked her to be on here today.”

“Thank you for having me, Ian. I listen to the episodes that my sister appears on and they’ve all been great, so far. I’m very thankful for your invite. You guys seem to have a good time.” Emma took a swig from her very own SMOSH thermos that was waiting for her at her seat when she had sat down. 

“Thank you, Emma, for joining us today. How we usually do things is we’ll have some things written down to talk about, a soft outline to keep the show going, but most times we don’t stay on topic. It’s not hard, don’t worry. Just have a good time, okay?” The host 

“Ah, yes.” Said woman hummed into the microphone. “The high point of my day. I know it’s only just starting, but I know I’ll enjoy it.”

“Things are about to get interesting for so many people today.” Ian chuckled into his mic.

“Hey, uh, Y/n. Are you as suspicious as I am, right now?” Courtney was looking straight at her, trying to convey that she felt that something was definitely off.

The two oldest at the table giggled, followed by Ian clearing his throat. “So let’s just get down to it before Ryan and Kevin get on me about not having enough material for posting.”

The cast recording went on as usual. They stayed slightly on topic, jokes were dropped roasts were had, serious conversation made it’s round. Things seemed mostly normal for a SMOSHcast, according to Y/n’s standards. Often, Ian or Emma would make a statement to the other person that would cause her and Courtney to glance at each other. They wanted to make sure that the other one caught what had happened. 

At one point, Emma attempted a joke that only Ian laughed at. But it wasn’t just a pity laugh. It was almost as if there was an inside thought that only they were in on. Y/n kept shifting her eyes between the two of them. Something was up, she could smell it. At first, she thought the idea was to just make her feel uncomfortable, the way Ian did to Courtney about her older sister. The way the two of them were looking at each other, however, told a completely different story. There was something afoot, she just couldn’t figure out what it was yet.

 After one final eye-lock with Courtney, Y/n decided she’d had enough. 

“Alright,” she sat up straight in her seat. “What the actual fuck is going on? There’s a mystery amongst us and I don’t like not knowing what it is. Especially if it involves either myself or my big sister.”

“Yeah, you guys are acting v weird. Like v v weird.” The blonde actress chimed in. 

The two seemed to have a silent conversation before Emma nodded and sat back in her seat, keeping her eyes on the host the entire time.

“So, Y/n, I convinced you to come on with your sister under the pretense that I wanted to harass you like I did with Courtney. Which, by the way, is one of my favorite jokes, mind you. But this time it isn’t a joke. I sincerely want you to know how I feel about Emma.”

Courtney giggled uncomfortably. “Why do I feel like we’re about to have the opposite of the divorce talk?” 

“Oh my God.” Y/n breathed. “Because we are. I don’t...what? You guys JUST met this week. How...What?!”

“Well, Baby Sister, that isn’t exactly true. Ian and I found each other on your social media. Tweet replies happened...and then DM’s...and then texts...and then facetime. This week is just the first time I got to finally see him in real life. And I gotta admit,” Emma winked at the host. “I like in-person a heck of a lot better.”

Ian blushed and looked at his laptop while Y/n remained lost beyond all words. She watched her sister and then watched Ian. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. When had this all started? How deep into their relationship were they?

Ian leaned into his mic, but Y/n had a feeling it was because it got him closer to Emma. “I decided to bring this onto the pod because I wanted to share with everyone where I’m at in life and how I’m feeling about it. And honestly? Emma? I love you. And I’m very thankful that I get to have you in my life. I hope I get to have you next to me for a very long time.”

Y/n swallowed and put her hands on her headset before pulling them off and standing up. “Excuse me.”

She quickly walked off of the set. She kept her head down as she made her way to her office, ignoring the people in the hallways. Once she got to the room, she closed the door and started taking breaths. She didn’t understand her reaction but she couldn’t take it back. She couldn’t believe she walked out of the podcast recording. What was she thinking?

Y/n expected a knock on the door at some point, but what she wasn’t expecting was the person behind it when she opened it. Courtney shyly let herself in and closed the door behind her.

“We wrapped it up. Finnerty thinks there should be enough material, even if they take out the last ten minutes of what was recorded.”

Y/n sat at her desk and laid her head in her hands. “They don’t have to cut it out. It’s my fault, not theirs. They wanted to talk about it, so it should be heard. It shouldn’t be up to me.”

Courtney sat across from the producer. “You know Ian would never put something out there that made any of us uncomfortable. Yeah, it’s his love life, but it’s your family. We’re all family. We look out for another.”

“That’s not why I’m upset, Courtney!” Y/n threw her hands into the air. “I’m happy for them! If they make each other happy, then more power to them! It’s not about Ian and Emma. I mean, yeah, it triggered something. Because now I have to worry even more about my personal life and my business life fucking together. Because it went so well last time!”

Y/n realized she was shouting and apologized quietly to the other girl that had closed her eyes and stayed silent through the tantrum. Neither of them said anything for what felt like hours, but it was only minutes. The producer drummed her fingers on her desk as the actress nibbled at her lip.

“For what it’s worth,” Courtney started. “I’m sorry. About everything. Between us, I mean. I had no idea any of that was going to happen during the recording. But with you and I...we could have had a healthy breakup. Neither of us took it well and it didn’t help that I hooked up with some random friend the next day. It was only a distraction.”

Y/n looked up and met her eyes. “No, Courtney. You don’t owe me an apology. Not for that. We weren’t together anymore. You were allowed to do anything, anyone, that you wanted. That’s the freedom of not being in a relationship, right?”

“I did it because I knew you could see me. I played it off like ‘fuck it, I don’t care’, but really I knew at any given second you could catch us getting close. And for that, I definitely should apologize.” 

Y/n gave a pathetic attempt at a smile to keep herself from crying. “I honestly loved you, Courtney. We were together before you were even out. I felt honored. And then right before you planned on coming out, we broke up. I thought that you were going to come out and that I would be right there with you.”

The tears seemed to be contagious, and Courtney started sniffling. “I wanted you to be there with me. I think I got scared. At first, I was so hyped, but when the day came...I thought it would be better for my image, or what the fuck ever lame excuse I had, if I came out and was single. But I think I was just scared of our relationship. I was absolutely falling in love with you, too, and it scared me. I hadn’t felt that way before and I just kept picturing it crashing. I had no clue how to save it if it did. I decided to hit the self-destruct button. It had to be easier if I was the one that ran it into the ground, right?”

“I was really mad at Emma yesterday when I came in here and watched how easily you two talked to each other. It’s been almost a year and I still don’t know how to ask you how your day has been. And when I saw you two laughing as if our breakup didn’t break me...I think I was jealous. Not because I want our relationship back, but because I wanted what we were before our relationship happened.” Y/n began wiping her nose with one of the tissues she kept by her monitor. 

“I miss it, too.” Courtney gave a half-smile. “Maybe one day we could make it back there?”

“I’d like that, Court.”

“It wasn’t you guys.” Y/n found herself in Ian’s office with Emma sitting on his couch, coffee in the older sister’s hand. “I, in no way, am upset at you guys finding someone that you love. If I can speak frankly, I panicked because I saw my personal life and my professional life crumbling down around me and it terrified me. I can’t help the fact that you two found each other. And you two are not responsible for how I reacted. I’m still dealing with the last time those two parts of me crashed and burned. I want you guys to know how much you mean to me as individuals and I can’t wait to see how you two are together.”

Ian was sitting at his desk. He thought through Y/n’s words before carefully choosing his own. “I would never want to do something, as your boss, to make you feel uncomfortable outside of this building. If this isn’t for you, Emma and I being together, then let me know. Yeah, it might suck, but you were my producer before I met Emma. My first priority was and is my work. And you’re a part of that. So if it does start to be too much for you, then please let me know. Don’t ever feel like you’d have to choose between Emma or here.”

Y/n made her way to his side of the desk and hugged him around his shoulders. “I know this isn’t your thing but deal with it for a few seconds. Today has been a lot. We both need this.”

When Y/n released her hold she kept her hands on his shoulders. “But, real talk? If you hurt my big sister I’ll hide your body so fast, no one will know.”

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

thoughts on starry after multiple listens

(dated July 8, 2020 because i might make another one)

Edit: I SHOULD FACT CHECK MORE

the Starry soundtrack is as impressionist as the painters it invokes by energy alone, which is impressive given the style of music used (of which i’m fine with, but not partial to)

the Prologue does this right off the bat

the people of Monmartre are very critical of the rest of France and I adore it

i can feel theo’s overwhelment in Impress Me

Impress Me does a wonderful job at introducing the setting of the show

that song is a ball of pulsating yearning—no wait that’s the whole show

Theo got so stressed he walked blindly into Madame Segatori’s cafe

learning that the Le Tambourin was named as such due to its tambourine aesthetic via Vincent’s portrait of Segatori is just incredible to me; the table is shaped like a tambourine

“If Paris is the world, Monmartre is Bethlehem; and art is our Amen” sounds so powerful

A New Horizon is so warm

i expect Theo and Vincent to be very cuddly with each other everytime they interact

“dream with me, dear brother” is the energy of this song

french wheat fields will forever haunt me because of this damn musical

*insert Do You Like the Color of the Sky? post here*

like, so much emphasis to the sky

Vincent’s dreaming leaking into Theo’s trading practice surely must be a sight to see

chain imagery hits hard after hearing Wheat Fields/Finale Ultimo

in this yellow house, we dream of freedom

“should I really take this giant risk?” “brother, I took a giant risk coming here—fuck yeah do it!”

United in Distaste reeks of Vincent’s intimidation—it has new kid in school energy and I am living for it

Vincent coming to Monmartre (and when he arrives in Arles) like “Hey, I’m new in town, and it gets worse,”

Bernard has apparently spent enough time with Theo to be able to identify Vincent by frowning alone

Rude of Gauguin to yoink Vincent’s painting like that; Segatori immediately hangs it tho—

Gauguin sounds like he’s going to corrupt anyone who approaches him—dude announces his horny nature during his introduction

Gauguin IS a savage and a whore and the best thing about that is that he knows it; even better knowing the vision of his costume

Segatori’s displeasure throughout the song implies that the artists that frequent her cafe also argue amongst themselves frequently

“keep in mind that we’re academic rejects, Vincent”

with the way Degas, Pissarro, and Morisot tease at Gauguin (noting that Gauguin, Bernard, and Toulouse-Lautrec are together in a later song), it sounds like they’re are hurling insults from a separate tambourine table

Toulouse-Lautrec sounds dramatic; Bernard sounds like he’s not sure where he is artistically—both are a mood

Of the post-impressionist table, the only one retaliating with genuine insults is Toulouse-Lautrec; Bernard and Gauguin only end up defending themselves while Toulouse was ready to tear down Degas and Morisot

Pissarro IS old (at this period in time in the musical) damn

Morisot is unyielding with her insults, “speaking of size—“ holy shit oh no

i reiterate—why is Toulouse-Lautrec the only one actually speaking in a French accent; almost everyone there is French

since I’m aggressively referring to him, I think Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec merits a musical of his own, and that’s based on what first learned about him when I first listened to Starry

by extension, also Berthe Morisot

Monmartre’s artists be like “We’re very critical of ourselves and each other, and while that’s worth being intimidated by, don’t be intimidated by us! What do you have to bring to the table, foreign painter?”

Something poetic about how what Vincent wants being what all the artists want hereby making him a member of their squad is so warm to me—galleries are gravity INDEED

“We will embrace the madness we design, or lose our mind,” IS THIS FORSHADOWING BECAUSE IT FUCKING SOUNDS LIKE IT

“i am loving this! YES, GET ANGRY!” if only i can identify who said this

Something After All is directed towards Vincent, right? It better be, I lack context

Theo’s yearning is so relatable and I fear not being able to fulfill it

bless Kelly and Matt for giving Jo so much depth in Enlightenment

apparently she deadass learned English for the purpose of translating the letters she had compiled??? yo i love that

poetic how Jo invokes making a legacy since she’s the one who actually preserves her brother-in-law’s legacy (and by extension, herself and her husband’s legacies)

at first listen, i immediately drew a comparison to Hamilton’s Eliza; Jo is better both musically and literally, given that Vincent van Gogh is far more relevant than Alexander Hamilton will ever be, even with LMM’s musical

not trying to start beef, just an observation

Jo’s yearning is also such a mood

fire, light, and road imagery being invoked huh

it is by this point i’ve to the realization that the reasons one goes to Monmartre that was cited in Impress Me tie in very well to the individual characters’ desires in this show

Where Are We Going? goes so hard ugh yes

“I need a stronger strategy to seize my immortality!” Gauguin’s incredible ambition is the root of his dissatisfaction; doesn’t help that he’s impulsive both in the musical and IRL

Toulouse prioritizes integrity and Bernard prioritizes progression—I wonder what this means for their characters in the show

Toulouse and Bernard calling Gauguin out on his known shitty behaviors feels like they’ll be problems Vincent will have to deal with in Act 2, when they live together

this is where Gauguin leaves for Martinique, right???

which one is the act 1 closer, really??? The Sower or The Road??? help me please

everyone in town is really concerned for Vincent

it wams me how much Segatori believes in him

Bernard’s right, Vincent van Gogh’s artstyle IS a melting pot

learning that Toulouse-Lautrec capitalized on his art during the peak of his career really adds weight to his concerns on Vincent’s inability to sell

i like to imagine the everyone’s in the gallery during The Sower

Theo and Jo’s relationship progressing as Vincent’s works don’t sell hits upon realization

Theo falling hard when he learns that he and Jo yearn for the same thing tho

recontextualizing the imagery that Vincent found beauty in into imagery that demonstrates his person is just mighty good of Kelly and Matt

then again, so much of his person is in the artwork to begin with

“and everyone knows your reap what you sow.” w o a h!!!

The Road starts like a dramatization of one of Vincent’s breakdowns and how he copes with them, or perhaps this starts after one??? The opening verses suggest a lot

also ties his road to his dream of freedom with what i believe is his travel to Arles

“North, South, East, West—navigate from inside you,” = “With conscience as my compass,”

“i am guided towards the night” this Vincent knows the answer but is so clearly far from its reach and is desperately trying to figure out how to

soul of fire, crystal heart and blizzard-like brain; the man is passionate and everyone knows it

“Fascinating, but maybe just a little too soon,” sounds like that at this point, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bernard genuinely recognize and admire Vincent’s talents, but also understand that the world is still against him and that they have the experience to prove it

the “sunlight and storms” imagery always concern Theo, Jo, and Vincent’s relationship with each other

Gauguin popping up in this song with the compass imagery implies the show’s going to make him a pretty interesting foil to Vincent; this sounds like him traveling back to Paris, or at least him attempting to vibe in Martinique

this hurts when you remember what happens to Vincent

“curse of the gifted” is a phrase i am too afraid to understand

DYLAN SAUNDERS CAN SLAY ME WITH HIS VOICE

The Yellow House sounds yellow somehow

who clears their throat before writing a letter???

Gauguin’s frustration’s against Vincent’s admiration of him is amusing

sounds like Gauguin hasn’t found his “freedom” yet

Theo is one generous fellow

this arrangement lasts for only 2 months; given the apparent span of this musical, The Yellow House is a very “calm before the storm” song

wait a minute—

apparently, Vincent REALLY admired Gauguin and was so excited for his arrival at the yellow house

i fear the dramatization of their disagreements

“Don’t tell Theo I said that,” it amuses me how the van Gogh brothers’ relationship is so well-known to these painters

based on the gifs lurking, the ear incident WILL be dramatized and I am terrified for my heart on how it will be depicted

Sunlight and Storms quotes the original letter from Jo to Vincent surprisingly well (i attempted to read some—there’s so many! this was one of the first ones i came across)

this song hurts when it hits how little time Jo and Theo had together as a married couple

I am convinced a lot happened between Sunlight and Storms and On the Threshold of Eternity

this definitely was after a breakdown

i skip this song just so i don’t think about the obvious implications, i must confess

the meaning of “sunlight and storms” hits the hardest here

“we will not let your illness keep you from finding your freedom”

The Red Vinyard is so full of a brother’s love

this hits me, and i speak as an only child

“You’ve carried me more than you’ll ever know,” AH—

when Theo finally sees the new horizon, Vincent is seeing it too

and what Vincent saw he put on a fucking canvas

“i can see it—a new horizon” = “the sight of the starry night”

they say that at the time, not much was thought of the iconic painting

i could only wonder what might’ve happened between The Starry Night and Wheat Fields

all the piano motifs coming together in Wheat Fields/Finale Ultimo, just like that

“I’m ready for harvest time” is melodically similar to “The road is bright”, particularly when it’s just Vincent singing the line alone

despite the obvious, I don’t think I’ll grasp the meaning of the final song; i also skip this one so i don’t think about it

[blackmuzak8484]

nortey dowuona’s best of 2020

to be completely honest, I decided to do this entirely for TSJ. otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered at all. Best end lists are for music nerds and billboard chart nerds and industry vultures, and i happen to be subscribed, in the discord and in the comments of the youtube vids of these folk. so, i decided to pick 10 out of random from the big best of 2020 i was compiling for the whole of the year, which I was gonna post to this Tumblr at the end of the damn year, but I guess I can just post the link to the playlist in the bottom of this post. Here, i’m gonna write about 10 songs I personally love, and pick out a few artists i specifically loved:

artist of the year.

RAP Ferreira put out his best album and best verses in a year everybody either stagnated, fell off or got rendered irrelevant by the world at large. He was ebullient, hilarious, thoughtful and even surprisingly honest. I enjoyed the fact that now he’s begun to create a real platform for many talented folx, and I hope he continues to do that in the margins and make even more beautiful music in the years to come.

rookie of the year.

Enny by a mile. Everybody else who debuted this year got hamstrung by the pandemic but she created 3 great songs, each thoughtful, insightful and a joy. Apparently she just started publicly releasing music to a large audience, and I hope she gets better and better, and even gets bigger than J-

most pleasant surprise.

Vic Mensa’s V Tape. An artist who I though had no more moves left completely turned around his whole career with a fantastic performance at Lollapalooza, a fantastic fleet of features and tis gorgeously produced EP which had some of his most brilliant songs on it. I love it all, Vic Mensah is well and truly back. Welcome back bro. (ALSO, DROP THE DRILL TRACK.)

GREAT THING A GHANAIAN ARTIST DID.

Strongman Burner, Amarae, Okunta Kinte, Vic Mensah in general.

cool things my friends and classmates did.

Justine Darcenne’s #4TheBaeless. Valencia Rae’s Siren thyhomebodies’s Coming of Age. (Phil, a producer in the group, made his own studio!) Brad built his own computer. petit abri put a track on APT9 Record’s compiliation album Volume II. khaalid anderson’s transitions. (khaalid will also be performing at Beats & Brunch on January 23, 2021 at 11 am.) Yannick Paul’s Bear Fruit. The Big Climax’s This Is Ya Boy kxng jetson’s Waves (ft. Kokko Williams & Mike Mezzl) Nicole Gonzalez performed in The Composer’s Melody. Victoria Marie released a bunch of beaufiful covers on her Insta, @toriiii_marie @ph0ssy_jaw works as a counselor online. Pay her at her PayPal. Johnny Aperano Yoba was on People AND Vogue. Dalitso is a wonderful pianist at his church back home in Zambia. Kobina is a fantastic drummer at his church. Kayla graduated with a BS in Music Technology and Industry! Damian been cookin on his insta. Travis graduated! (Look out for Clan of Dragons.) Rorghino Flores made a documentary! Francis (and Animax FYB) put out Mmofra on AmaLexPrime! (play it with yo kids.) A Hype has been dropping crazy all year, roll by his SoundCloud and check out Persistence Of Memory. Reina H been doing great covers on her Insta, @challenges_inlife. Hannah placed music on C. B. S.

best albums of the year (that nobody’s written about).

Maya Huyana -1991 DaWeirdo - Broke and Ugly $ilkMoney - Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 VI Seconds - Because Why Not/Never Knows Best Erik Cain - Heart & Soul Vol. 2 Dimitri & the Scarecrow - Messenger is Sender (from 2015, finally got released onto streaming this year, still pretty great and another great Zimbabwean rapper for us to all fawn over, just like billy woods) Flowking Stone - Gifted 1 The Hoodies - Incommunicado Jayy Grams - Every Gram Counts Domo Genesis/Mike and Keys - Just in Case1/2 Madwiz - God’s Gold Teeth Maez301 - Hasaan Daara J Family - Yaamatele Dai Burger - Dessert EP TeePhlow - Road To Phlowducation II Tef Poe/Blvck Spade - Preacher in the Trap Terrell Hines - Portal One: The Mixtape redveil - niagara Nyukyung - Trap Harmonix AdrianXpression - Sucka Deante Hitchcock - Better (Deluxe) maassai & jWords - ve.loc.i.ty tobe nwigwe - cincoriginals everything Kelsey Lu did this year.

strangest things happening in music in general.

vic mensah actually making a great record. goldlink going through a narcissistic collapse and winding up making the best music of his career. redveil blowing up off Fantano calling him wack. pharoahe monch finally making a rock pivot and it actually works. meet me@the garden coming 10 years too late for my 14 year old self. RAP Ferreira being in the NYTimes, selling a vinyl record for $72, creating an actual nostrum grocers in a video game so we can listen to his next record. The entirety of the playboi carti phenomenom. The entirety of the lil uzi vert phenomenom. The entirety of Chance’s instagram EP being far more money worthy then the entirety of the Big Day and yet being released on Insta and not immediately monetized. Deante Hitchcock releasing a great album and being completely forgotten armand hammer releasing their underground kings wayyy too early. my ass continually not actually looking into amapiano despite always loving it when I review it. several good songs needing to be tacked on to a prior youtube vid as an ad for me to find them instead of actually listening to the artists. santan dave still releasing good verses after he made his illmatic. (expect his new album to suck.) slowthai becoming cake. (we let that go way too far.) Guapdad and BfB Packman being wonderful. Finding out BfB PAckman is a better rapper than Sada Baby. John Boyega putting on Ego Ella May. Having to admit Young Dolph was good all this time and i missed out like a fool.

best tv performance.

Chance The Rapper’s “A Chi-Town Christmas.” IDK’s “Change The Channel.” Sa-Roc’s Tiny Desk Concert. Chika in general. Robert Glapser’s “This Changes Everything (ft. Denzel Curry).” SZA at the Roots Picnic. Sampa The Great at the Roots Picnic. RAP Ferreira in general. Umi’s “Introspection Live Show.” Alexa Esperanza’s cover of “Is It A Crime.” Bad Bunny in general. the jwords, nappy nina and MIKE performances at Satellite Syndicate

most embarrassing piece of music i love with all my heart

Logic’s No Pressure. In all sense of the words I should not love this album like I love my siblings but I do. It is beautiful.

best 10 songs of this year objectively

1 - RAP Ferriera - An Idea Is A Work Of Art (ft. Mike Ladd) [prod. by Kenny Segal, mr. carmack and Mike Parvizi]

I know, I know. In all honesty Doldrums should be here. Then Noz put it on his best list and I had to be all ChiTown Go-Getter and pick the next better thing: this. And in all honesty, it has the best lyric RAP spits on the album: “we build better answers.” But it’s not just that, it’s RAP’s most animated performance, the most dexterous piece on the whole album and the most gorgeous beat, a loping bassline sliding behind the flatfooted drum, allowing Mike Ladd, his musical father, to gently drift through, saying, “what if royalty depised us?” and knowing the only gold is soul and giving it to all of us, all us maggots and vultures and locusts and weevils, to hold to the light so we can finally see. On the quest to get open and free, we continue.

2 - Chika - U Should [prod. by Lido]

I heard this the night it dropped and shot 2 insta videos playacting as it played. But apart from that, it’s a intimate, beautiful song about getting to know a new lady love, so tenderly sung it might melt and disappear if not held gently, with a sweeping guitar lick and purring trumpets sliding all over the place, Chika softly holding each frayed piece together into a considered, gorgeous piece - wait, she’s talking her shit.

3 - Issa Gold - Boys Don’t Cry [prod. by Kingjet & Sherwyn and Matt Zara]

The only reason this isn’t number one is because it dropped on Christmas Eve. But otherwise, it’s a openheart letter to us all. “it’s a lonely path being different,” Issa says, swimming in the melted ice caps as he once danced happily on the edges of melting glaciers that failed to drown him, looking at the world that keeps hurting his heart, yet he still opens his eyes and smiles, and dances. The heavy drums are so bouncy the whole song suddenly flies, formerly a hidden murmur becoming a bright sunlit flight across the sky so we can all see. I can’t wait to see Tempus, if it’s anything as good as this was.

4 - Deante Hitchcock - Growing Up/Mother God [prod. by Brandon Phillips-Taylor]

In all honesty, “Growing Up” is really not the best song on Better. It’s a sweet, happy song with a smooth, crackling bassline with soft, ghostly synths, but still kinda ok. It’s the song added at the end, “Mother God”, that has warm, sizzling piano chords and gorgeous singing in the back. It’s one of the few time I’ve ever heard a man pay homage to the woman in his life and to the God above while being entirely sincere and not faking the funk. The way he praises his mom, his lady, remembering the women in his family taking care of him and him foolishly neglecting Breonna due to his overburdened mind feels full of details, remembrances, explanations and praises. Plus, it actually makes sense that God, if she exists (she does) is a woman since -

5 - Yana Perrault - whiskey and weed [prod. by slate]

Apparently, Yana Perrault is verified now. Excellent. {YES YES MY GOD YESS}, It means more folks know about how great this song, and Yana herself is. If I had any sense, I would’ve written up 12:21 as the best song of 2018, but such is life. Anyway, we have this smooth, bass heavy slinker with shimmering percussion and lumbering drums about hooking up with a former flame who’s “sober” yet keeps on calling Yana to break their sobriety, “know we ain’t talked in a while but you still know my address,” she wryly mentions. As the beat sprints away under a warm cocoon of accapella echoes, it mirrors a relationship so tenuous it might disappear into the wind. Yet still strong enough to have whiskey on call.

6 - Marlon Craft - Culture Sick Freestyle [prod. by Cormill]

Apparently this was supposed to be a shot at Flex. And since Flex is a woman beater and a lame, good for him. Shouldn’t have even gone on Flex to be honest, but then again neither should Jay Critch or Tyler or Black Thought and besides, I watch those freestyles too. And on the freestyle, Marlon frankly put things in perspective. “You don’t want us to better, you just want to be cool still.” This describes all of rap media to be real. And tellingly, it only has 310,000 views. Methinks nobody really wants real. But I do. Thank u Marlon, you continue to be the best white rapper alive. (Nowhere near the best rapper tho, and if Token hadn’t fell off -)

7 - Miah - Cascades [prod. by Cedes]

I’m sideeyeing the boy Miah cuz I had to search up his Audiomack to find the producer’s name (it’s Cedes, and they have a really great avalanche of Drake Type Beats is you like that kind of thing). Were you trying to trick folk into thinking you produced it yourself? You don’t need to do that shit. Especially since you’re writing stuff like “back in high school all my peers were tryin to hit the league / until the league too far from reach so they tap dancing over beats.” When you can frankly break down life that clearly, don’t be trying to hide producer’s names unless you actually learn to produce too. Plaster your name all over that shit.

8 - Justine Darcenne - Off Days [prod. by Mikhail Miller] / Enny - Peng Black Girls (ft. Amia Brave [prod. by Paya]

Justine is indeed my classmate, but that’s not why this song is here. it’s here because it’s a nice little guitar driven song with a spellbinding bridge that’s the best thing I’ve heard her do yet. And I’mma keep it short cuz I already wrote this up at the Singles Jukebox.

Enny released this soft, cushiony record with washed out synths over bulky drums and floated FLOATED over them without even trying to run in the tar, saying frankly, “He said to me, 'they put guns in the streets, that’s what they wanted for me.’ And I said, ‘G, someone can fix you a plate but no one can force you to eat.’” After all, why not try to live for something greater than what the world has expected you to be. And Amia sings, “We’re gon be alright, ok?” with the joy and excitement of someone realizing the words coming alive on their tongue. One of the best songs of this miserable year, and it’s kinda funny watching Jorja accidentally Drake out Amia and even Enny (and by funny I mean irritating.)

9 - Tobi Lou - okay (ft. Dreezy) [prod. by Matteo Woods & Dilip]

Fun fact: Dilip did some great songs with Otxhello, a producer who recorded and mixed 2 records on my first album. That again is not why this song is here. The warm, swinging synths and heavy, bouncy drums are why this is here. Oh, and Tobi’s goofy, silly lyrics and his surprisingly effective Missy Elliott tribute are great too. But obviously, the verse that vaulted this into top 10 was Dreezy, which opens with such a openhearted line, “i can’t help it, it’s too hard to say I’m sorry.” And every line is harder than the last, until she closes with “and I ain’t talkin frontals but we got the city sown up.” Absolutely amazing.

10 - Strongman Burner - Pilolo (ft. KelvynBoy) [prod. by Nixie]

The sweet, gooey synths are poured over the soft, zipping and smooth drums as the wiry bass whirls between Kelvyn’s soft, thin crooning as Stoneman tap dances over the drums, both desperate and defiant, trying to salvage a sinking relationship that he knows is already gathering coral and snappers. It’s the best afropop song of the year and yet it still has a Nigerian on it (well, I put 4 Nigerians on here, next year I’m rectifying that.) And they even did a song together last year , not as good as this. At all. (still pretty good tho.)

best 10 songs i love (but not enough to write full paragraphs for, I already put 10 in and this is already 5 goddamn pages)

11 - Logic - Heard ‘Em Say

best song on the project that isn’t Dadbod but at least it isn’t tempting fate.

12 - Deqn Sue - Creep

I already love this for having a gorgeous bridge, and is cute af. Yes Sue, you can creep.

13 - Quelle Chris & Chris Keys - Sudden Death/ka - i love {moms, mimi, kev}

QUELLE CHIS CAN SANG SANG./ka can heart heart write.

14 - IDK - Square Up (ft. Juicy J)

I don’t know why this is here either but this slaps regardless.

15 - Nappy Nina - Modestly (ft. Maassai)

Maassai is creating some of the best raps out here. so is Nappy Nina.

16 - Kehlani - Lexii’s Outro (ft. Lexii Ajaii)

Let’s celebrate our great rappers when they’re alive (and this includes me. Pls Chika, don’t win Best New Artist.)

17 - Samad Savage - Goodnight

What Travis Scott should’ve tried to be instead of what he is now. Samad still dope af regardless.

18 - Bad Bunny - Si Veo Tu Mama

The way Bad Bunny actually hits that last note makes me feel so excited and alive.

19 - Fat Tony - Back In The Saddle

I fucked up. But I’m getting back in the saddle, back in the saddle next year. NO NIGERIANS ALL NIGERIENS. #ENDSARS tho.

20 - Lady A - the truth is loud

Why am I the only one who has this on a best list? I have 34 bot followers. Vibe, step it up.

best of 2020 music right here folxs.

worst music things of the year:

The Pop Smoke album. Just in all areas. (Better win that Grammy tho.) Travis Scott in general. (So loud and empty and boring.) Big Sean’s Detroit 2. (why does this exist? Just put out Deep Reverence and Detroit Night Cypher and leave everything on the cutting room floor fo the next album.) Remembering all the great rappers who are dead or incarcerated. No Kendrick album (just leaks. Not good enough.) J. Cole and Noname beefing and Noname getting strung up by twitter. Jay Rock pushing being anti-vaccinations. The realization that Normani might never drop a single record ever again. Tory Lanez in general. Joyner Lucas making actually good songs and falling off almost immediately. Cardi B in general. Anything positive being said about steven Universe songs. Luzamity shipping (until it’s canon please stop! Willuz is RIGHT THERE!)

[thismightbewynn]

Wahoo, saw some of @deniigi‘s lightening prompts and the little impulse gremlin in my head yanked my chain and here we are, let’s go wahoo!!!  I did go a little hamwild with it though so big oopsies there but also I regret nothing and so I will not apologize!  Very long though, so I’mma slam dunk some of this under a read more.

-

“Foggy,” he nudged lightly.  “Foggy.  Foggy, Foggy.”

The accused raised his brow.

“What?”

“Take it back, Foggy.”

And back down the brow goes.  Up went the corners of his lip.

“Naahhh.”

This guy.  Ugh.

“You’re disgracing me, Foggy,” he said, without even a little bit of pouting.  Not even draping himself over a door frame or anything.  Certainly no theatrics.  “Slandering my name.”

“Denial is just the beginning, Mattias Murdock,” Foggy said into his cup, as if covering his smile would work on a blind man’s perception.

“My name is not Mattias.”  A pause.  “And I’m not old.  Take it back.”

“Okay, Matteo.  I believe you.”

That wasn’t taking it back.  That was active disbelief and dismissal.  These were things he could not have; not on his dignity, and certainly not on what little was left of his life.

He had little life left to live, not because he was old, but because he was going to die young, burning out fast and dancing forever.  Probably in the river somewhere, actually, but his poor life choices weren’t the issue here.  The issue here was Foggy’s refusal to withdraw his poor opinions, despite the stellar counterpoints Matt had beautifully presented just now.

It’s whatever, though.  It’s fine.  If his word wasn’t enough for this argument, then he’ll just find someone else to support him.  It can’t be any harder than finding a witness for court.

-

Spidey was doing a wonderful job.  Great work, really.  He didn’t know what was going on, since he came with zero context and bags of ulterior motive, but it sounded like general crime fighting with a hint of reptile.  It also sounded like he was just wrapping up.

He did something that was probably a salute.  He couldn’t keep track, nowadays.  Spidey was constantly trying out different salutes from a list he’d compiled from all four corners of the world wide web.  He was on a quest to find the ones best suited to make him look cool and respectable, he explained when Daredevil asked what all the hand waving was about.  He tried out a different one every week because he was weighing the public’s reactions to them.

The public was confused but charmed by it.  Matt, being part of the public by day, was not immune to this effect.  Apparently nobody was.

“I love you, officer.”

He pumped his chest twice and did the salute of the week again.

“I… sure, you too.”

The officer awkwardly imitated him.  Spidey’s heart beamed with joy.

“Well, I gotta go now.  Take care, ¡adios!”  He saluted again before he left.  The officer’s responding heartbeat indicated surprise.  Spidey had likely literally disappeared again.

“Why are you here?” he whispered, without really whispering at all.  He was awful at it, despite attempts to teach him otherwise.  He’d get the hang of it sooner or later, regardless.

“Just conducting a private survey,” he said, turning around, cane rhythmically tapping against the sidewalk.

“If this is about your costume, you look like if Shadow was designed to imitate Knuckles instead of Sonic.”

Matt had no idea what any of those words meant in that order.  He made no plans to understand or pretend to understand.  There were more important things at hand.

“Spider-Man,” he started.  “What was your first impression of me?”

“Honestly?  Cool but scary.  I thought you were gonna accuse me of murder and I’d be, like, yessir that sounds about right.”

“And now?”

“Uh, can I say something first?”

“Go ahead.”

He paused in thought, carefully chewing on the offered silence that was to fuel his thought process.  That was good.  Thoughtfulness and honesty was important for testimonies.  They were also important in general, but right now, he was looking for a testimony, so whatever.

Spidey’s heart beat steadily.

“I know it’s easier said than done, but you shouldn’t care too much about what other people think.  I mean, obviously it’s important, but I think being able to back yourself up is just as important.  Like, it’s great if other people believe in you, but you gotta do it too.  Self esteem, you know?”

Aww.

Useless for what he came for, but.

Aww.

“That’s great,” he said.  “But not what I’m looking for.”

Spidey sighed something tired.

“Well?” Matt pushed.

“Honestly, you’re a grumpy old man.”

That was worse than useless.  That was actively detrimental to his case.

“Wish you weren’t grumpy, though, but maybe old people are just like that.”

Said the kid who put way too much research into salutes.  And also, he’s not old.  Goodbye.

-

“The fuck are you asking me for?”

The younger the individual, the more valuable their opinion to how old he wasn’t.  If he asked someone older than him, of course they wouldn’t call him old out of bias.  If he asked someone of the same age, he would sacrifice what little was left of his dignity between them.  It had to be one of the wee ones.

“I’m conducting a private survey.”

Wade squinted.  Matt pretended not to notice.

“I’m not asking you.  I’m asking Eleanor.”

“You know everyone’s old to her, right?”

What--

How did he--

Whatever, it’s not important.  His opinion doesn’t matter right now, he’s not a wee one.

“Knock yourself out, dude.”

Eleanor Camacho had too much brutal honesty in her.  It was borderline rude.  His heart was bruised and she didn’t even give a shit.  She had an elaborate, extravagant torture system thinly disguised as a training regimen for her small brigand of action figures.  Little did they know, they were not saviors, but puppets meant to wreak havoc for their small, merciless god.  Anything or anyone who interrupted her was the scum of the earth, and was treated as such.

Of course her opinion was skewed.  She was upset.  People generally don’t say the nicest of truths when they’re upset.

This wasn’t working.  He needed to find someone in a good mood.

-

MILES: hey, did i say something wrong??

MILES: whatever it is i’m sorry

MILES: nevermind, foggy just told me you’re having an aging crisis

MILES: good to know you’re okay though!!

MATT: I am not having an aging crisis and Foggy is a liar. And yes I am perfectly okay thank you for noticing.

MILES: don’t worry dude, you’ll get over it!

MATT: Miles I just said I’m okay.

MILES: i freak out every birthday because growing means more responsibilities, but that’s a crisis that just runs out after i have some cake

MILES: and like, you’re done growing, so that’s it! these are all the responsibilities you have and you already know how to handle them. so i guess my advice is to get some cake

MILES: or something that is not cake, i don’t know what your tastebuds like. maybe you like to eat raw fish i don’t know

MATT: Miles, I appreciate what you are saying, but that is not the problem and you are not helping.

MILES: what’s the problem then?

MILES: is it because foggy said you’re old? because i’m sorry but he’s right

MILES: actually i’m not apologizing for telling the truth. you’re old, man

MATT: I’m going to block you.

MILES: you always say that but you never do it and honestly i don’t think you know how

MILES: you know why that is? it’s because you’re old and that means you’re technologyphobic

MILES: don’t worry, peter is old too but he’s not technologyphobic because he’s a nerd. you can ask him how to block me, i won’t mind! i just hope you can figure out how to unblock me on your own lol

MILES: i won’t judge if you have to ask peter how to unblock me too, you old people gotta stick together

MILES: no response? gone to ask peter how to use the youth gadgets your old man brain cannot comprehend i see

-

MATT: Miles is becoming too bold for his own good.

PETER: did he call you old? That’s okay he calls me old too, it’s like the opposite of making fun of how young he is.

PETER: also i heard about your aging crisis from him and honestly? Good luck dude

That was a private survey.  It was supposed to be private.  He remembered saying it was a private survey. 

PETER: may says that you can defeat feeling old by acknowledging that time passes and figuring out why being old feels like a personal attack to your emotional security

This was the worst.  This was exactly why that survey was private.  He made a silent pact to himself not to ask Miles anything ever again.

MATT: I see where Miles gets his bad influence from.

PETER: don’t blame me when miles gets all his advice from may

PETER: he says mine is faulty and full of holes which i guess is fair but like ouch you know?

MATT: No, I don’t.

MATT: Also, while I have you here, what was your first impression of me?

PETER: i’m not participating in this bye feel better soon

MATT: Peter answer the question

MATT: Peter hey

MATT: PETER

-

He was mourning the ongoing death of his youth and vitality.

“Are…  Are you okay?”

SAM.  SAMUEL.  DEAREST SAMUEL BLINDSPOT CHUNG.  FINALLY, A YOUTH HE CAN TRUST.

He immediately abandoned his mourning activities.

“Sam,” he said, with much urgency, leaning his weight against his palms on the desk.  Sam’s spine straightened to attention.

“Yeah?”

“What was your first impression of me?”

“Uh.  I don’t know, mostly just scared shitless?  But also really, really excited.”  A pause.  “And then mostly respect after that.”

Good, good.  No mention of old age.

“And now?” he continued eagerly.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhh.”  Sam creeped backwards.  “Uhhhhhhh.  You know what?  I’m just gonna.  Go.  Think about my answer.  And then come back later when I have it.”

NO.  SAM.  COME BACK.  UGH.

Matt sunk in his chair again, stuffing his face into his desk to hide his misery from the world.

Foggy came in.  Sam did a little dance with his head bouncing around behind Foggy’s back, trying to discreetly figure out what was going on.  He was failing at both.

The root of the problem leaned on the doorframe.  The man who watered that root was covering his smile with a mug, like it actually hid anything.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Fuck,” Matt bemoaned to the wood.  “I’m old.”

"That's what this is about?" Sam muttered to himself in the background.

“If it makes you feel any better, so am I.”

It didn’t, but it would if Foggy knew how to block people.

-

Thanks for reading <333 

Also, clarification: old age is mattphobic on account of the fact that having crunchy bones makes it hard to break other people’s not-crunchy bones.  Dementia?  Ain’t ever heard of her, that a new baddie or something?

Also also, I think Matty here has communication skills but like, he’s not good at using them when he’s being fueled by spite and selfish deeds or whatever lmao.

Anyways, have a good one !!  (This is also on the ao3 btw, if you wanna go check that out for whatever reason)  

lol (lots of love)!!!!

[crazy-loca-blog]

Personal thoughts on Red Carpet Diaries, Book 3, Ch. 17

Note: As the title says, these are just personal opinions on Choices books and chapters. Of course, you may agree or disagree with them, I only use this platform to express my thoughts on what I read every week and what I’d like to see in the next chapters, because none of my friends play Choices so I have no one to comment the books with.

And… that’s a wrap!

I don’t know… I’m trying to find the words to describe the final chapter of this series and the truth is that it left me kind of speechless… and not in a good, positive way. Maybe my expectations on this chapter were too high?

We all knew this chapter was going to be fully focused on the wedding, so there are no surprises on that matter. However, I can’t help feeling like everything was insanely rushed, and that was pretty evident in many aspects of the wedding and the chapter in general. First, the amount of people that was missing was insane. For example, I expected to see Leo from Rules of Engagement and The Royal Romance as Chazz mentioned a few chapters ago that he would be one of the guests, but we didn’t see him. Also, when Roxanna asked me about who was going to receive an invitation, I remember saying Ryan Summers, but he wasn’t there (just as Josh Morello). Instead, we got Chris Winters and Cecile his wife (not complaining about this though, I had a hard time choosing Ryan over Chris). Not even Matt’s dad appeared and I was marrying his son!! Our mom only appeared if we decide that she would walk us down the aisle!! Why didn’t she help us with our dress?? And where was Ella??

We also had these extremely unexpected cameos and relationships that at some point got us all (even the MC) saying “WTF?!?!”. My absolute weirdos were Markus and Sara… like… really? I mean… why? how? Too weird to handle, in my opinion (and I actually thought that Markus was married… maybe he’ll use Sara as his new muse?). I also have mixed emotions on Chad and Gloria. This probably takes the second place on the ranking of the weirdest things I’ve seen in my two years playing this game (again… number 1 has to be Markus and Sara!), but at the same time, I feel this is a match made in heaven… as friends, of course! They may become my besties any day! On the other hand, I have to admit that I was glad to see Fatima doing the hair and makeup (you lied to us! you said you had no experience in other weddings, except your own… unless the RCD wedding occurs after the AME wedding in the Choices universe). And I’m actually wondering if the officiant is Steve from Perfect Match or if they just reused his face, but seeing him there was surprising, to say the least.

Anyway… I want to go back to the “missing” stuff. A lot of people are mad about the cake thing. And so I am. We did pay diamonds for the scene to get the cake, you know? So it wasn’t nice to discover that the cake wasn’t even shown during this chapter. Also, we had plenty of opportunities to get press points throughout the book, but there was no mention to it during the wedding… we didn’t even see the magazine with the exclusive coverage that was promised! It didn’t even impact the success of the movie… and let’s remember that we also got some of those points by buying diamond outfits. So yes… this is a MAJOR disappointment that makes me regret a couple of diamonds that I spent in this book. I also had a personal conflict with the wedding dresses and the hair, I think we needed at least one extra option. But this is very specific to my story. In my very specific case, my MC was a brunette with a long hair throughout the series, so her wedding look changed her face a lot… and that felt weird, especially because the normal hair didn’t seem to match any of the dresses. So in the end, I chose the look that disliked me the least.

The rest of the chapter went so fast that I’m still trying to decode what was that. From a lame wedding night (I don’t know… it wasn’t supposed to look like “another sex scene”, and it did), to a honeymoon that didn’t have any impact on the story (and that we’ll probably forget in a few days), it looks like some things were there just for us to say that they were present.

Things that I liked? I have to think about them a lot, but yes, I found at least three. First… Chazz and Crash are moving in together!!! I’m so glad that this happened!!! I know I originally wanted to see Chazz proposing Crash, but I have to admit that this made me pretty happy. We never got to see much of their relationship in the series, but I’m convinced that they deserve each other. So kudos to that!! Second, I loved to see that the MC and her LI (in my case, Matt) took their time during the wedding night to discuss the future and that they are even planning to make some hiatus on their careers just to have fun… I wish I could do that! I can barely go on vacation one week every two or three years! But I have to point that I’m still waiting for a real closure for Matt’s personal conflict… saying “everything is going great” just doesn’t make the cut for me as a reader.  And third, I have to say the extra scene. Getting the posters was absolutely worth it, in my opinion. It was special, as things went even back to the very first book of the series (by the way, the poster scene makes me think that they moved in to the MC’s house)… and there were some funny moments as well… it was like a compilation of bloopers in the movies where the MC and our friends participated. If you didn’t get the extra scene, look for it on YouTube… you’ll find some things that will make you smile (my faves were Chad vs. the protein shakes and the MC sneezing accident).

And this is how Red Carpet Diaries brings down the curtain. Unfortunately, I think that this series that started with a fantastic Book 1 was followed by some very lame Book 2 and ended up with a very mediocre Book 3. And this makes me so sad… and frustrated! There were so many plots that could have been explored or deepened… so many things happen in Hollywood and we didn’t even talk about them! It’s a shame because this series may have easily become a fan favorite (and we might even be talking about a Book 4 now) but I guess the writers (or PB/Nexon) decided to play safe instead of taking risks… and I think that was their biggest mistake. This is kind of a “go big or go home” situation, and they definitely ended up going home.

[fullstop-official]

A Hellish Freak Disaster with Burning Rubble and No Survivors

AKA: Chapter One - July 18

In three days, everything will change.

But right now, Travis Longfield is swatting his free hand at my shoulder as punishment for having my feet up on the space above the glovebox in the Gator – his Wrangler nicknamed aptly for its military-appropriate paint job. I have to laugh a little at his feeble attempt to keep straight on the road and hit me at the same time, more to mock him than anything else. But I finally give in and give up my recline before he takes his chance at the next stop sign to go for the ankles.

“You care about this thing too much, dude,” I tease, “I’m not allowed to sit comfortably – Jesus, I can’t even eat in here!”

“Do you want her to end up like Cole’s car?” The Gator, of course, has always been a her. “He wrecked that Cherokee. It can’t be saved. They should write it off for internal damage.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry I upset your girlfriend here. I won’t dirty her up.”

“I’m not really worried about that,” he says with a smirk. “You’re not even the one dirtying up your own girlfriend.”

His comment makes my mood immediately plummet, and, as we pull into the Mechis’ driveway behind a sleek, black Lexus, my mood suddenly becomes a satellite that drops from the stratosphere, falling down, down, down toward the earth at thousands of miles per hour and on fire. Travis parks the Gator and we both climb out. He takes a moment to pull his guitar case from the back seat before we go about picking our way around the aforementioned Lexus and Cole’s hopelessly-stained, wrapper-littered Grand Cherokee to reach the side door to the garage.

We enter, and we’re the last two to arrive. Cole is sprawled out on the duct-taped loveseat by the wall that’s way too tiny to fit all of him. He looks over and his shaggy and badly-highlighted hair flips naturally as his head turns. Still, our appearance isn’t enough to steal his attention away from loudly strumming a progression of power chords on his guitar in order to mess with Matt. Matt is attempting to tune his bass on the other side of the room in spite of the noise, but probably isn’t having an easy time without anything that resembles quiet. Bryson is on the beat-up couch opposite of Cole, scribbling in a binder that’s full of schedules, sets, general to-do lists, and other notes that he says are necessary and need to be kept – though the entire thing is so crammed with papers that it will explode one day.

My satellite mood fails to brace for impact and crashes against the ground, colliding in a hellish, freak disaster with burning rubble and no survivors when I see the Lexus’ owner practicing the screeches that she calls “vocal warmups” by her mic stand, front and center. Saying she’s my mortal enemy undoubtedly makes me sound like some sort of comic book supervillain, but I’ve never come up with anything more accurate and less theatrical and childish to describe what we have. Our rivalry would probably take an entire war map with battalions and flags to comprehend.

I met Selena Walton when we were in seventh grade – briefly – but truly got to know and dislike her the following year when our feud officially ignited. It was just shortly after that, during the same year, that the rest of us really jumped on the idea of forming the band and, by the end of eighth grade, we’d seen it through.

There was just one problem. I play the drums. Travis is lead guitar, and Cole is on second. Matt plays bass. Bryson covers keyboard when we need it for certain songs, but otherwise acts as our manager. We were good on our own, just the five of us, but when things started getting more and more serious, we had a debate about lyrics.

Cole is an incredible singer – when he’s singing unclean vocals (the screamo parts). When it comes to singing regularly, he may as well just strangle a bird on stage; the sound it would make is more or less the same. Our preferred genre of punk and its “close-enough” offshoots (we’ve found that a healthy mixture brings in a bigger audience) are starting to blur the lines a little, but we all agreed that we wouldn’t be a full-fledged screamo band. We resolved to use his talent conservatively. The rest of the guys couldn’t carry a tune to save their lives.

I can sing, but drummers stay at the back of the stage, and squishing the two roles together makes the show lose a certain kind of energy. The audience generally likes to see the singer while they’re singing. I can sing backup, but there needs to be someone up front. A hype man.

Enter Selena Walton. Unwelcomely welcomed to the band after our first five months of minimal lyrics with a three-to-two vote.

And whom I hate more than anyone else in the universe.

And maybe it would be slightly better if she didn’t front our band. I have nothing against female punk singers, or really just female singers in general. Many of them are good, even pretty great. Selena, however, is an exception. She hates the vast majority of the music that we perform. And, though what she does is technically considered singing, she is an alto who thinks she’s a soprano, which is the worst kind of alto and does not make for a spectacular – or even subpar – show. Her signature style is going up a few too many notes at the end of nearly every line, regardless of whether or not she can hit them, and it is such a pain to listen to that I’m surprised my head hasn’t shattered like glass, or exploded like Bryson’s band binder is going to do. This is all in addition to her entitled, annoying, spoiled brat attitude which is all wrapped up into one short, oblivious, bitchy, brunette package.

I wish that was the end of it, but, devastatingly, having Selena as our lead singer isn’t even the terrible part. I can deal with that. But about a year ago, band practice went from being the few hours a week that I had to tolerate the fact she exists to my own, personal hell.

Bryson’s managerial skills are sharp, but PR-wise he tends to run things like a scripted reality TV show in order to make us stand out from other local acts so people can invest in our “personal” lives. I don’t know what celebrity dating scandal gave him the idea, but a fake inter-band relationship was proposed and, by some weird misfortune, not immediately vetoed. After a ton of arguing, I literally drew the short straw.

Selena Walton is my fake girlfriend.

And I hate her.

At the very least, after a year of playing pretend (and having her hang off of me during shows after spitting in my face behind the scenes), I haven’t actually been forced to kiss her or anything yet. I think I’d have to tear off my lips and cauterize the wounds if that happened.

Bryson still sticks to his delusional claim that having us fake date is a good thing for the band, even though it causes more drama when we’re alone together than it ever does when we’re out in the public eye. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep it up because Selena only acts like she’s staying faithful to me when, in reality, she’s probably slept with every guy who’s ever looked at her for more than five seconds. Pretending that I tolerate her is a tough challenge, but I deserve an Oscar for acting like I love her.

And so, when Travis and I walk in, she pretends to ignore me, but I watch her in my peripheral when she thinks I’m not paying attention. She gives me a look; it’s a spiteful, almost disgusted scowl. For what it’s worth, I’m glad she can just barely endure my mere presence. It’s the one thing about this entire situation that makes me feel all happy and light inside.

Travis sets his case down to take out his guitar, and I go sit on the arm of the couch next to Bryson. Since we cleared out his garage to act as our rehearsal space, my setup has lived here permanently and I’m the only one who ever touches my drums. They only move for gigs, and I don’t have much to prepare before practice.

Cole gives me a subtle nod, but doesn’t stop strumming one of our originals. “S’up, Scott,” he greets me. He uses my last name instead of my first. Bryson, Matt, and Cole have all done that as long as I’ve known them – apparently, the single syllable of my surname is easier than having to waste energy saying the two in Morgan.

I glance over Bryson’s shoulder after nodding back. The paper he’s mentally wrestling with has July twentieth – Friday’s date – and the time of our show at the top. The rest is the final setlist he’s been compiling that has only just been finished. It takes us a long time to decide which songs we’ll be playing, and in what order. (I blame Selena.) The one thing that Bryson has left blank is the space after encore:.

We always do an encore. And it’s always a Paramore song because they’re the only non-objectionable option Selena likes. Paramore is an amazing group, and I do like their music, but if she doesn’t learn to like literally anyone else, I’ll start to lose my goddamn mind.

Bryson taps his pen against the paper for another minute, and then grabs the list and, leaving the space empty, shuts the binder. Our logo is on the front of it, slipped into the plastic cover. It’s just a black circle with our band name, Full Stop., inside of it in an all-caps, blocky, white font. We let Cole design it – we’d said we wanted something simple, and, though it looks like something that was created in Microsoft Paint (and it probably was), he’d delivered. Selena thinks it’s too plain, which is why I think it’s the most wonderful graphic in the world. I wear one of our T-shirts as much as possible and I’m met with her judgy glare each time.

I watch Bryson set the binder aside and look over the setlist another time before rising. “I guess we can start,” he announces. Cole’s instrument abruptly stops. The garage, however, is not entirely silent. Matt and Travis use the absence of guitar riffs to actually tune their instruments. At the very least, Selena shuts up.

I proceed over to my kit, and purposefully bump Selena’s shoulder with my arm as I pass. She’s about five-foot-four – about a head shorter than me – and it irritates her when I “accidentally” run into her. It makes my whole day. I sit on the stool and the others slowly start to claim their positions. Cole drags his amp over from the loveseat, and Travis pulls the elastic from his hair so it falls just to his shoulders. He claims having it loose helps him rock harder. I fail to see the correlation, but he’s a damn good guitarist, so I try not to question his methods.

As Matt takes his place, and Selena taps her microphone to make sure no one (me) has muted it behind her back again, I put my earplugs in and grab my sticks. They feel like an extension of my body when I hold them – like having just a little bit more to my arms. My nerves begin to hum with anticipation. I saw the first song and I’m pumped to play it.

Bryson gets started and reads the set from the paper like always: song title, and then the artist for Selena’s music-illiterate benefit. He only skips the artist if it’s one of our originals – at least she knows the titles of those. And she seems to tolerate singing them. Sometimes.

“Okay, open with This Could Be Anywhere in the World – Alexisonfire. Selena will take a sec to introduce everything, then Silver Bullet – Hawthorne Heights, right into Bring Me To The Light. Selena can improvise something after that. Green Day’s Holiday smoothly into Boulevard of Broken Dreams, then You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring, and this is the working title for the story of two crazy kids.”

“We never really found a title for that, did we?” Travis says teasingly. He throws a small smirk my way.

“No,” I agree in a similar manner, “We really didn’t.”

If he’s going to make fun of me, I’m taking it in stride. I wrote that particular number, and a fair chunk of our other originals. I think that sometimes my titles are pretty good, even when they’re just chorus lyrics. But sometimes – well, they’re that.

“Selena improvises something, and then we go to the Red Block,” Bryson continues without missing another heartbeat. I’m pretty sure I hear his voice raise a little to grab our focus again. “Red Flag – Billy Talent, Red Sam – Flyleaf, and Something Different – Red As Dusk. Selena says stuff. Changing – Saosin. Pressure – Paramore. Selena talks. Be Like The Zeros. Kiss Me, Kill Me – Mest, and Selena introduces the final song. Strong finish with Postcards – Amber Pacific. Got it?”

Four of us nod, or make our brief sounds of agreement. Selena ruins the unanimous confirmation.

“And my encore?”

“If I keep thinking about that, I’ll have a fucking aneurysm,” Bryson says with a straight face. He passes her the setlist. He knows if we start having that discussion now, this won’t be a rehearsal, it’ll be a homicide. “Just run through what we’ve got. We can look at that when I know this set is okay.”

She mutters, “Well, for once I’d like to know what we’re doing before the night of the gig.”

“Yeah, then maybe we could do something other than Misery Business, or Still Into You, or Rose-Colored Boy, or – no, wait. That’s about it, huh?”

She doesn’t turn, but she does stick her middle finger up at me. I hear Travis try to softly suppress amused laughter; a small, entertained huff escapes him. She hates me. It’s so great.

“Please just practice the damn set.” Bryson’s voice has shifted to something like exhausted pleading. He’s not in the mood to break up a fight today. I mean, he’s going to have to anyway – there’s not a single doubt in my mind there – but he doesn’t want to. He always gets this way so close to a show. The stick doesn’t come out of his ass until the stage lights go off.

To ease his stress a little, we do as he says.

This Could Be Anywhere in the World is one of Cole’s favourites to perform because nearly half of it is unclean vocals. This means that it’s one of my favourites to perform because Selena’s unstable wailing only has to pierce my auricular space half as much.

And it’s a ton of fun to play on drums.

Once she’s butchered her way through Silver Bullet and one of our originals, I’m introduced as the representative from California by one of Travis’ very few spoken contributions during Holiday. Even though its absolutely necessary, Selena hates the fact that I’m the best she’s got for clean backup vocals that won’t make our audience’s ears bleed. She especially despises this brief part Matt and I share – my voice and drumming and his iconic bass line – simply because it takes the attention off of her for nearly a full bridge. I sing the rebellious lyrics with a smirk shot her way. She flips me off.

Selena hates singing You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid, and sings this is the working title for the story of two crazy kids terribly in an attempt to annoy me. She makes it painfully obvious that she’s suffering through the Red Block, and gets a smidge better during Changing because a Paramore song follows. She always complains that I use too much cymbal during Pressure. I wonder if she’s actually listened to the song, or if she’s just deaf.

I watch her reach for the list again as it comes to a close and beat her to it.

“I Love How You Say We Can Be Anything But Treat Us Like Shit.”

“That’s not what it’s called!” she snaps.

“Sorry. Be Like The Zeros, parentheses: I Love How You Say We Can Be Anything But Treat Us Like Shit.”

She turns a bit just so I have the luxury of seeing her roll her eyes.

“What? Do I need to say it backwards too?”

I can visibly see the rage manifest inside of her head and, with another smirk that I can’t help at this point, and that I can’t say is innocent, I launch into a hidden talent that frustrates her to no end. I don’t know exactly how I came across it, I just know that I’m able to do it and she’s not. Travis can do it as well, and he watches me with amusement as I drive Selena up the wall. I picture the smoke coming out of her ears as she glares at me.

“Tihs ekil su taert tub gnihtyna eb nac ew yas uoy woh evol I,” I recite. “Bryson knows the title – he wrote it!”

“Just start the damn song, Scott,” Bryson sighs rather than taking a side, even though I’m right.

I don’t give Selena the chance to have the final word. The crash cymbal screams beneath my stick in the intro. Thankfully, Bryson purposefully wrote this song in the right key for her alto voice, so I don’t have to hear her try and fail to sing outside of her vocal range.

 “My mind is clouded like a smokehouse / I think I need a light to find what I was gonna say / My body’s numb and feeling funny / Lost here in a strange place / Just another average day.”

 I’m sure Bryson is relieved when we finally make it to the end of Postcards without another interruption. The first hour of practice ends with our finalized setlist played in full and no unstoppable brawls.

“Can we talk about my encore now, Bryson?” Selena demands at the final note, ever the princess.

Bryson starts to look as if he would rather eat his own hand than discuss the encore and incite her wrath, but also that he knows if we don’t talk about it beforehand, we’ll have to pick ten minutes before the show and we’ll end up doing Let The Flames Begin again.

“Okay, fine,” he relents. “Band meeting.”

I set down my sticks and pull out my earplugs as the guys put their guitars on the assorted stands. Selena leaves her mic and goes to take a seat. She hates sitting on the furniture because everything in here is a relic too shitty for a thrift store; it’s all either tearing, patched with duct tape, or just too stained or dusty to be used by anyone other than a semi-successful garage band in LA. Selena’s in one, but she doesn’t act like it.

We make it a habit to sit as far away from each other as possible. Matt and Bryson take the loveseat where Selena’s perched herself on the one not-duct-taped arm that’s probably going to need a layer of the stuff in about a month. Travis, Cole, and I take the couch.

“Thoughts?” Bryson asks. I can tell he’s bracing himself.

I am too, but I keep my mouth shut and wait for Selena to get her terrible idea out of the way first.

“We should do Ain’t It Fun,” she pitches. “It’s always a crowd-pleaser.”

“It would be if our regular crowd hadn’t already heard you sing it a hundred thousand times.”

“What’s fucking wrong with that?” Her angled eyebrows raise, and I can already see her pupils filling up with fire. If anyone else had said it, she wouldn’t be as pissed off, and that simple fact alone is why I argue in the first place.

“Should I say it forwards or backwards?” I demand. She scowls. “They’re getting bored! If we lose the audience at Underground, we won’t get gigs, and Full Stop. is just fucked! Back me up here, Bryce.”

Selena whips her head around to glare at Bryson so fast that I expect her to break her neck, and I’m almost disappointed when she doesn’t. Bryson’s biting into his cheek, not wanting to say that I’m right in order to avoid her fury, but not denying it either. The others show their agreement plainly – Matt’s mouth takes on an uncertain slant, eyes bright, and Cole can’t stop himself from nodding subtly. Travis wears a smirk. He always takes my side in this war.

“Oh, fuck you guys!” she spits. Her defeat is a delicate sound. It’s like music to my ears.

“What do you want to do, Scott?” Bryson asks. His voice is calm, a mediator.

“We already have a Paramore song in the set. We can’t do another. We need to try something new this time. An original, or–” I rifle through my mental music library. I know which songs we’ve done, and all of the options we haven’t ever tried because Selena is a brat with bad taste. “Maybe actually try some My Chemical Romance for once? They’re a fucking staple to the punk-pop genre.”

“Ew, no,” Selena interrupts. “Veto.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Where do I start? They’re terrible.”

“First of all, how dare you.”

“Here we go,” Bryson sighs. He goes unheard.

“Second, do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah, like fifty! We should do something by The Chainsmokers.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What? They’re good!”

“No, they’re overplayed! The crowd will be asleep before we even start. They’re not even punk!”

“You’re such a fucking snob!”

“Wow! Look, everyone! The pot is calling the kettle black!”

“Guys! Holy fuck – calm down!” Bryson’s voice cuts through us both. He’s rubbing his temples to curb the migraine Selena’s clearly bringing upon him. “Can we all remember that music is subjective?”

For a moment, the silence rests. Travis is clearly entertained and firmly stuck on my side. Bryson’s trying to fight off that brain aneurysm he promised himself. Cole and Matt are somewhere between rolling their eyes and coming up with an excuse to leave.

Selena is on the brink of completely detonating. Her jaw is set, posture disturbed and rigid. She doesn’t remove her beady, flaming eyes from me, and looks like she’s trying to murder me with her sheer force of will. In her imagination, she’s probably stabbing me with one of my drumsticks. Her tiny fists are clenched.

“Marianas Trench,” she says through her teeth.

“Are you joking? You’d need a church choir just to sing half their crap,” I say. “Dead Kennedys.”

“Veto. Ed Sheeran.”

“Worse than The Chainsmokers. Jimmy Eat World.”

“What? With their one fucking song? Vance Joy.”

“Who?”

That one really makes her mad, so I grin as I say it. She knows I know who Vance Joy is – if only because she’s mentioned him four million times and butchered one of his stupid indie songs over and over again with her shrieking.

“Good Charlotte,” I suggest.

She rolls her eyes. “Twenty One Pilots.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Really?” For a brief moment, I watch her little, round face light up.

“Yeah, as soon as you can rap, feel free to buy us all synths and ukuleles. I’m sure your Daddy can afford it.”

She’s so angry that I can nearly see her brain boiling. There are a few Twenty One Pilots songs I would willingly relent to adding to a Full Stop. setlist, but at the moment I know she’s too pissed off to even name one. I almost want to laugh.

“Taylor. Swift,” she hisses, enunciating every single syllable with a seething staccato. She knows I would never agree to it and that’s the only reason why she suggests it. Everything she ever does or says is designed to make me mad. In this way, we’re one and the same.

So, I mimic her tone. “Fuck. No.” And I’m just about to throw out The Gits – not that Selena could ever dream to live up to Mia Zapata’s legacy – when–

“Wait!”

The single word from Cole breaks our staring contest. I still feel my blood thundering from the rush of adrenaline that comes with pushing Selena to her breaking point, but I turn my attention on him. Cole’s straightened up from his lax slouch and, even though he’s sitting, he’s still a human tower – it’s no wonder the football coach spent nearly two years trying to recruit him. His eyes are stretched wide with an idea.

“What?” Travis asks.

He takes the question, but turns to me. His massive hand is slapped against his forehead, an indication of an epiphany. “Punk Goes Pop.”

“Excuse me?” Selena demands. Her teeth are clenched, and her brows are high.

Cole doesn’t need to explain it to me – I’ve caught onto his idea the second my mental music library dredges up the collection. He elaborates for everyone else.

“Yeah, okay, so Fearless Records has this series where they have punk bands cover pop songs, and, like, they’ve done some Taylor Swift stuff. Uh, You Belong With Me, Trouble – oh!” – he claps abruptly as the next idea enters his head and, again, his eyes turn on me, full of excitement and what appears to be an ego boost due to his own perceived genius. He’s gesticulating with the approximate energy of a German Shepherd – “Blank Space from the volume six rerelease! Dude, I Prevail goes so fucking hard on it! I had it on repeat for a month, and I can do Eric Vanlerberghe’s parts no problem!” He’s practically already playing air guitar.

“There. See? It’s a compromise,” Matt agrees.

And maybe it seems too good to be true…

Because it is.

“Yeah, too bad we can’t do it,” I object. Bryson sighs audibly and mutters under his breath. “If we let her sing the clean vocals, it won’t sound anything like a punk song! She’ll just try to sing it exactly like the original and fuck it up!”

“Fuck you!” Selena fires at me.

“Then you sing it, Morgan.”

I give myself whiplash turning to look at Travis, and the energy of the garage turns palpable – a thick, stunned tension that I could slice through with a razor blade and a ton of effort. Arms crossed over his chest, Travis shrugs, completely relaxed and completely, unbelievably serious.

In an instant, the initial surprise melts away, and I’m more confused by his proposal than I am shocked – or maybe it’s just an intense mixture of both. But the point is that I can’t sing it! I’m a drummer! That’s the only reason she’s even here in the first place!

“What?! No!”

“Yeah! ‘What?! No!’” Selena parrots me. For once, we’re actually in agreement on something.

“Why not? You’ve got a good voice, and I know you know the song.”

“Who’s going to play the drums?!” I reason. “That’s why she’s here!”

“I suggested Taylor Swift! I don’t want him singing it!” Selena protests.

“Exactly! Then she can’t hog the stage and be an attention whore and has to settle for being a regular–”

“Morgan,” Travis interjects (scolds), still calm despite presenting me with an insane idea just a moment ago. Selena flips me off with a look of pure hatred. I generally don’t like to push it that far, but I stand by what I was about to say. Her name is synonymous with it.

“I’ll find someone to drum for you,” Bryson says.

I scoff. “What? Am I that easily replaceable?! You’re all fucking ridiculous!”

“Scott,” Bryson starts in his middleman voice. I look at our manager and lift a brow. He seems to wait until everyone has copied me and all eyes are on him.

And then he supports Travis’ idea.

Using some of the most glorious words I have ever heard in my life.

“If we can just get this over with – pick the cover of Blank Space with you on clean vocals so this discussion will fucking stop – you can dump Selena.”

I have no idea what to say.

So it comes out unfiltered.

“Oh, screw you, Bryson.”

Not meant to be hurtful. Just… I can’t even explain it – just some sort of instinctual, astonished reaction.

I would be free of Selena Walton. And I would get to steal her encore.

But I would have to sing front-and-center. Even though it’s a cover, it’s still a Taylor Swift song. I wouldn’t have to sing all of it – about half the vocals in I Prevail’s version are unclean, so Cole would take them. But it’s still a tough debate.

I can’t really feel my body. I guess the shock is still settling in. Or it has settled in pretty deep and fried my nerves or something. But, while I’m internally wrestling against my own opinions, I dare to steal a look at Selena that ends up lasting longer than just a glance. Her eyes are narrowed, her jaw is tight, and her back is rod straight. She’s still inconsolably pissed at the idea that she could end up without an encore even though she’s had plenty already, but I see something else underneath that.

She wants me to take it. She doesn’t want to have to pretend to be shackled to me any longer. The feeling is mutual.

They’re all staring at me as I weigh the pros and cons a few more times.

In the end, I look Bryson dead in the eyes using what I can only describe as a defeated, cold glare.

“I want it in writing.”

Chapter: 2

[heilewelt]

2019 is over. Here are a few things I loved.

This year went by way too fast and occasionally I feel like I haven’t done anything, haven’t experienced anything. Busy with a full-time job time flies by and it’s been way too quiet on here. However, in the last couple of days I reflected on the musical side of the year, wondering if I experienced as little as I think and remembered some very fine moments, concerts, album I fell utterly in love with and new discoveries.

Orville Peck is the combination of all. I did an interview with him earlier this year and he has been such a great conversation partner and seeing him live just made be fall in love forever and always. I’m fascinated by the way he creates his character on stage and his performance – somewhere between a Country star and the theatrical elements of an musical and musically influenced by all kind of genres, even punk and grunge. I kept returning to his debut album “Pony” all year long. This love won’t be over anytime soon.

Most loved concerts in 2019 in no particular order:

Patti Smith.

Archive. Favorite all-time band. 25. Anniversary concert in Paris. Do I need to say more? This band keeps being incredible.

Reignwolf returned to Berlin with a new album “Hear Me Out” and it was one hell of a show. Purest Rock’n’Roll. Sweat was involved.

The Raconteurs. 10 years. It was about time. I went to see them in London, Cologne and Berlin and it was such a joy!

KISS. The best. The last concert in Berlin. Perfect.

Caspian are an absolute must live. They always made me feel all the feeling – joy and sadness were lying so close when I saw them live in Dresden. They didn’t play in Berlin this year, so I had to travel to the nearest town.

Ida Mae are such a wonderful, heartfelt band. I saw them a few times this year and every time they got better and better. Glad they are stubborn and wouldn’t want to be a country pop duo but a very fine Blues influenced Folk music.  

Low Cut Connie was a complete surprise. I remember winning the tickets and thinking I’d see a nice quite Folk band as I haven’t checked their out beforehand. Boy, was I wrong! Jerry Lee Lewis meets Elvis meets Elton John. What a live band – within a  minute they had me dancing.  

Faces On TV got me dancing.

North Mississippi Allstars reminded me what (live) music is for when I almost forgot it: to make you forget about daily life and enjoy the moment. What amazing talents and what a joy of playing live.

The Picturebooks are another band to save Rock’n’Roll. Always fun to watch.

Matt Andersen doesn’t need much. He just sits there with his guitar and it’s all you need. He makes you dance, feel, laugh. His energy and laughter always blows me away.

My favorite festivals couldn’t be more different from each other: Watt En Schlick on the beaches of Dangast, Germany, this August and the UK version of AmericanaFest which takes place in a couple of small clubs in Hackney, London, UK. Both are not very big and feel just intimate in a way. Friendly people who organize the festivals, great audience and the selection of the artists is very diverse. I loved both festivals.

Albums, EPs or songs that have been played a whole lot this year in no particular order: The Raconteurs “Help Us Stranger” – I’ve been waiting for this album 10 years and I’m so glad these four found their way back into the studio.

Reuben And The Dark “UnLove” – I love Reuben voice for so many years but with “UnLove” it felt like a renewed love. Especially the song “Breath” gets me every single time.

Poor Nameless Boy “Wake Up Call” – for reasons I don’t understand his music always feels like home, very comfortable, even when the topics are not that comfortable. 

deFrance “Second Wind” – I should’ve written a review about it. I met Drew DeFrance earlier this year at Americana Fest UK when he played guitar for Arkansas Dave. “Second Wind” is a bit of old school Rock’n’Roll, some Friday night music but for me it just doesn’t get boring. I enjoy it so much and feel terrible for not writing the deserved review about it. Listen to them. Just do it. 

Arkansas Dave “Live at Music in the Park at Montreux Festival” – Dave’s live energy is fantastic. I travelled to AmericanaFest London in January 2019 mainly to see him live and he’s so good. The live recordings from the Montreux Festival capture his energy on stage perfectly. Rock, blues and fabulous guitar play. Great dude as well. Hopefully I get to see him again in 2020.

Great Defeat – “A supergroup of bands you’ve never heard of” is written in their twitter bio but I know the bands and I love them and therefore I love this band.

Sunset Sons “Blood Rush Déjà vu” – “Alien” on repeat.

The Glorious Sons “A War on Everything” – Actually my album of the year, with “Panik Attack” being my hymn for the year.

Blown Away Soundtrack – It’s a movie by two guys travelling the world, meeting musicians in every country and compiling this wonderful record. My favorite song is “Radiate” with Jack Mantis. I saw it live after the movie was shown in Berlin and couldn’t forget it.

Sam Isaac “This Year” – This EP is the reason you shouldn’t start your End of the Year list beginning of December. It was released on the 27th of December. He could have joined Great Defeat as my love for his music come from the same time and because of the same record label Alcopop. I stumbled over his new EP on the 27th when it was released. I didn’t knew it was coming. That evening I listened to it until I fell asleep.

My favorite new discoveries:

Rival Karma are so much fun. Gotta love this bearded, guitar/drum, rock’n’roll duo.

Rosborough has a sweet Irish accent and makes heartfelt music.

I found Ian Noe through an instagram post of Jason Momoa. What a beautiful deep voice!

Beranger are super fun. Their concerts are fun. They have classical piano and Pop and Beranger is an entertainer par excellence. Whether it’s on a small floating stage or a sold out venue in Berlin. He plays Mauerpark, Berlin, and there you just can’t sit quietly on your piano to have the people stop at your place. Certainly one’s to watch.

Willie Jones combines Rap with Country. Sounds like it doesn’t fit? When Willie Jones takes care of it, it’s a perfect match but to experience his music to the fullest you got to see him live!

And now let’s get 2020 started with a bit more live music and a few more words written!

Thank you for reading,

Dörte 

[raibebe]

I've read all your work and im such a fan of how you write. Me as a writer ( a crappy one though lol) would like to ask for advice when writing, like how do you make such good writings and manage to never drift away from the topic and the flow goes so well ugh, i dont even know how to explain. Just want to advice and maybe some help haha, i have writers block and cant seem to like anything i write and everytime i try to write something, i drift away from the topic and end up deleting it.

Well first of all, thank you for all your kind words 🖤

I don’t really know how to start and this is probably going to be a lot of rambling, so bear with me for this one.

So I also tend to drift off topic a lot when I write actually, that’s why my works always end up way longer than I intend them too. And most times it’s not bad if you get off topic. Some stories just have their own way and sometimes you just need to go with the flow of writing even if it takes a different turn than you intended it. In the end it might not be what you originally wanted but it might be a beautiful work nonetheless.

Writing with prompts has really helped me personally though. Shorter stories in general really help with that where you circle around a small topic. When writing multiple chapter fics it’s harder and I really can’t give any advice on that because I myself have never completed any multi chaptered fic I have ever started and I have been a writer in so many different fandoms and have never managed to do that. Or any completely original stuff for that matter.

Writers block can be difficult and sometimes you just have to wait until a great idea just pops into your head, so your motivation and stuff will just be back. With writing prompts that people are waiting for I’m sorry if anyone reading this has ever requested anything from me, I’m taking forever you sometimes just have to force through it.

I just try to come up with a concept first. Just rough outlines on what I want to happen (that’s a lot easier with prompts because they already give you a very very rough outline). When I got the “storyline” down (with my prompts is mostly just key words like a flow chart maybe and when what sentence is going to be said, not more than one or two lines) I just start writing. In the first paragraph I like to have sort of an introduction into the scenery and the general circumstances.

If I’ve got the mood down, it helps me if I listen to songs that fit the mood. I have several playlists especially for Monsta X for that matter. Also it helps me that the songs are neither English nor my native language so I have a sort of mood setting background noise that’s not interfering with my thoughts. I remember for my first Halloween work I listened to Who by Seventeen’s performance team on repeat for hours (I can’t listen to it anymore) because it just portrayed the mood really well and brought me in the right mind-set.

Well from there I personally write in pieces a lot (I don’t know if this is good advice though, it’s just how I personally work, I’m afraid you ultimately have to find out what works for you). What that means is if I get stuck in a certain part, I just leave a bit of space, write keywords on how the scene progresses to the next one and write the next part that I have ideas for. The Halloween work that’s gonna be online later tonight I think was like that as well. It was written in three parts that I only connected when I already had the ending completely written. And I think I also got the ending scene done first, then the middle part and then the beginning. This personally also helps me to make everything as logical as I can. Because when I know what the character is doing at the end, I know how to make him act in the middle part, if that makes sense.

What I also try to do is paying attention to details. Like never forget what your characters are doing. For example if they were lying down, they can’t just walk somewhere without getting up first. For me it’s the little things like that that mater and personally drive me crazy if someone (myself or other writers) get that wrong. Like saying that the reader wore tight jeans and in the next scene they get their skirt hiked up.

Talking about the reader, I like to keep them as vague as possible so many people can relate to them. (Also I personally don’t like using stuff like Y/N because my brain is too stupid to insert my name and I just read what is written which is just weird, I just use pet names when I feel it’s necessary)

Also you mentioned that you delete lots of things you write: Don’t do that! I feel like leaving a work alone for a while and coming back to it a little later to work on it again sometimes works wonder. And even if it can’t be fixed you can always look back and maybe learn from it. I still have the stuff I wrote in school and sometimes like to embarrass myself while looking at them. If you follow me for a little while, you might know that I’ve said that I wrote a Minhyuk prompt that I didn’t feel comfortable posting, I still have that and I am still working on it and it’s probably been like 2 months and I still don’t like it for variable reasons but it’s getting better, so just hang in there.

And lastly, having friends to talk to about your work or a beta reader really helps. I got lucky and @kihyunsbabe was kind enough to read through my stuff for the past fics.

And sometimes there are just days where nothing seems to work. Don’t stress yourself. Just relax and watch Monsta X Ray for the nth time or some crack compilations.

Wow, this is way longer than I thought it would be... Who saw that coming with me? But I hope I could help you at least a little bit and give some insight as to how I personally write. Again, it’s just how I work, it works for me. It might not work for you, you just have to find out through trial and error. 🖤

If there’s anything you’d like more advice on, don’t hesitate to ask.

[frequencied]

GAMMA FACTOR, OR: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE OLDER

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge.

"so you take the reciprocal of the square root of one minus the speed over..."

"matt," pidge protests, pen clattering loudly against the desk.

"you wanna be in the garrison someday, right? you're going to be doing these kinds of equations all the time."

pidge looks at him with brows furrowed (skepticism), lips knotted tight like she's bit into a lemon (distrust). this wouldn't be the first time matt's led her on for a joke. but his tone now conveys nothing but honesty (not the first time) and simple patience, tapping the tablet's screen. a couple small equations are scribbled in pidge's hand: here, the distance to kerberos. there, the speed of the ship matt and sam will take to get there. the proposed time of the journey. pidge may have only just started learning algebra in class but there's no way in hell matt's sister is going into middle school without a grasp of the fundamentals of calculus. she's a holt.

"just trust me, okay? it'll be worth it. so you take the speed— in kilometers per second, of course— over c and square that..."

pidge follows obediently, writing out two long trails of digits.

"that's a lot of zeroes," she says.

"it's a fast ship. okay, now plug it into your calculator..."

there's the soft clacking of pidge's fingers typing the equation into her calculator. 

"wait," she squints. "why is it off?"

"why is what off?" he asks, though he can't hide his grin— the one that says I know why, I'm just not telling you.

"the time. it should be ten million. it's ten million and thirty."

lights dance behind matt's eyes like fireflies. "because of special relativity. you remember how I told you about the twins paradox? how if one twin shoots off into space, when they come back, the earthbound twin will be older?"

a second passes. another. when it finally clicks, pidge nearly jumps from her seat.

"we're the twins!"

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. minus thirty seconds.

they make it to kerberos. matt wonders as the ship reaches its approach velocity if those fifteen seconds come all at once, if pidge back on earth isn't running through a class like an emulator set to double speed. or maybe it happens when they slow down, he thinks maybe he can hear shiro's stretched-out tones as they run through landing procedures as they have a thousand times before. relativity is just that, after all: relative.

they make it to kerberos. they don't make it home.

he tries to keep track of the dilation with the rebels. lose a minute. lose a second. everything becomes twisty with FTL, the mathematical twisting of his equation far easier than the mental twisting he has to do to accomodate to the new circumstances and new allies. but he doesn't spend all his time in his own ship where he can rely on sub-second engine logs; some days he spends aboard vessels that aren't his, stolen from this outpost or that galra cruiser he doesn't entirely understand the nuance of. olia tells him he spent three weeks in a cryopod while his sinews stitched themselves back together after a bad mission, and no one had bothered to log the time or distance of their FTL hops while he was under. he took the average of his weekly time dilation and used that, though the answer always left him unsatisfied. inexact.

he knows this relies on pidge having a consistent velocity. he picks earth, telling himself she must be safe there. it's a comforting thought when the enemy is spotted in the same system as his listening outpost and he flips the switch he prays he never has to flip, the one that shuts off everything but the barest life support; the outpost may be positioned at the far end of a dead system, but it bleeds radiation and rebel transmissions in a way that makes it shine brighter than its pale dwarf star to anyone looking to root out these kinds of stations.

and believe him, there are a lot of people trying to root out these stations.

but the calculus is relaxing. it's relaxing, and more importantly, it serves to keep his mind sharp through the mundanity of a listening outpost. he finds new ways to entertain himself with numbers. he can see the sun from here, so he starts with that— measure the distance from the parallax. use his rebel-provided star charts to find constellations he recognizes on earth, and link them back together to see their strange, malformed shapes from a totally different perspective. orion becomes a giraffe, with an elongated neck and four lopsided limbs. cygnus? now it's a beetle.

he does the math again and again. he tries to lose himself in the numbers. he tries to not think about the fact that for however long it feels like matt's been up here, from earth, it's been longer.

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. minus seven days, twenty-one hours, and sixteen minutes. he thinks.

matt keeps an eye on voltron.

it's half pragmatism; the rebels need eyes on the defenders of the universe to make sure troops are deployed as necessary, either with or without voltron's backing— sometimes they need cover. sometimes it's about striking somewhere while voltron draws away firepower somewhere else. and while this war has made him a soldier, it's not something that's ever been at his core; matt's rebellion comes at the end of encrypted messages, with colour-coded maps and logs; he compiles data, he watches, he looks for patterns. a war is a puzzle.

pidge tells him they're going after lotor. pidge tells him about the fight. pidge tells him, in an overconfident tone that has become surprisingly like her— the pidge who finds matt is a far cry from the pidge who he knew on earth, but the change isn't an unwelcome one. quite the contrary. he's glad to see her so sure, full of their mother's fire and their father's good judgement— that they're going to stop him, because they're heroes. they have to, right? defenders of the universe.

matt tells her to be careful, because like him, you can never tell pidge not to do something.

voltron goes to fight lotor. voltron does not come back.

matt scrambles with shaking hands and panic screaming up his spine, fighting to keep his tone calm as he outputs for days on all frequencies: where is voltron? has anyone received confirmation from voltron? is voltron still alive?

is my sister okay?

days stretch to weeks.

did I fail her?

weeks stretch to months.

did I fail our parents?

the galra sense this absence and hammer the rebels hard. they're stronger, more voracious now; like an animal with its back to the wall, the empire senses its impending doom and only fights with the sick kind of desperation that can only be found with something coming undone. every line the coalition built is burnt to cinders by sendak and the empire. the blades fall. the rebels do, too. matt's crew of two dozen is reduced to six, and they hide away with the lights off like scared children from the boogeymen.

months stretch to years.

but while he knows the what, he refuses to acknowledge the why. pidge didn't leave a trail. but it's not because she's dead. pidge can't be dead. voltron can't be gone. they need them— they need the defenders of the universe. they're going to lose this war otherwise. she's just busy. she has other priorities. pidge isn't kind enough to leave a trail like matt had because she doesn't have time. he doesn't blame her— can't blame her. pidge doesn't understand what it is to be a big brother, doesn't understand what it is to have your entire being, your beating heart exist to protect another. even when matt was taking his tentative steps into real, tangible rebellion, his every action was guided by a single thought: find me. if shiro is out there, if his dad is out there, if pidge is out there, they'll find him. he hid the clues well, disguised them in math and tricks so deeply ingrained in the holts that only the holts could find them. they had to. they had to.

he looks for them instead in what's missing. places where things should be. the universe is now defined by her absence; so, too, is matt. every instant not spent on the run is spent looking for her.

they find her, eventually. or: she finds them. because of course she does. she always finds them.

when matt sees her again, she's in the hospital, with bae bae giving two loud thumps of her tail as matt approaches. matt pulls his limbs around her and hugs her as gently as he can, fighting every part of him that screams to squeeze and never let go. he lets her talk about the journey through the void, the road trip (he laughs at the name, but it's an expulsion of air, all reflex with no humour), the battle that saved them all. he watches transfixed at her excitement, how even in her darkest moments when they were sure they would die, she burns with the knowledge that they couldn’t. he clenches his fists well below her line of sight until four half-crescents bleed in his palms and tries to not cry.

sitting in this room, watching her body slowly heal beneath sheets and gauze, he wipes away all those calculations of fractional seconds snatched by special relativity. because minutes and days mean nothing when compared to telling their parents that pidge might be dead, to watching his friends and loved ones be taken one by one by the empire in the face of the gaping maw of their absence. 

matt is eight years, eleven months, and twenty three days older than pidge. plus four years.

[antitheticalsymbiosis-blog]

Beginning the long journey... (Year 0, Day 1 [sorta])

As I begin down this long and arduous path, I figured why not catalog all of my progress (and failures) in a blog for the world to see! 

All memes aside, I should probably begin with an

INTRODUCTION:

I’m Manuel; my friends call me Manny. I’m a recent graduate from a bachelor of music (B.Mus) program in southern California where I was fortunate enough to meet some great friends, mentors, and professionals who helped guide and inspire me to create some awesome aural artwork. I’ve loved music for as long as I could remember, and it was always something that drove me to be my best. I’ve aspired to play many instruments from a young age and always sought perfection trying to master their intricacies. I studied both composition and saxophone performance in college, while frequently freelancing as an audio engineer (my current line of work).

But wait, isn’t this a game development blog?: Yes, yes it is.

Due to a variety of circumstances and personal interests, I’ve decided to jump ship from one extremely difficult creative field (concert/classical/experimental music) to another (game development), leaving behind a life I feel indebted to and, honestly, still love very much. I’ve been thinking of making this jump for quite some time (a year or so), with a long, loooooong history of engaging with the video game medium on a deeply-infatuated level, which ultimately backs up this decision. Throughout my life, video games always played a pivotal role in my own forms of expression, happiness, leisure, and community. From my very first Gameboy Color to the now flourishing Nintendo Switch, from Pokemon to Monster Hunter to Bioshock and more, I’ve been hooked. Honestly, I’ve always considered these worlds my second, third, fourth, and n-th homes. Because of this, I’ve felt like I have a duty to give back to the community however I can. After five years of collegiate study and ridding the struggle bus, I realize that there’s no better time than the present to chase this dream. THE NOW, or WHERE TO START:

In firmly deciding on this change, I didn’t necessarily know where to begin. Hell, I didn’t even really know what careers or roles existed in the game development community. After finding scouring the internet and finding some helpful resources, I was blown away at the sheer amount of readjusting I’d need to do to even think about entering this field. 

For example, this messy bundle of terms flooded my brain while trying to get a grasp of the industry:

Senior-level

Lead

Technical Director

Junior-level

Temp

Frequent moving

Designer

Level Design

Mechanics

Game Design Document

UX/UI

Programmer

Game Engine

Systems

Game Engines:

Unreal

Unity

Doom

Quake

C++

Python

Scripting

Engineer

Architecture

Audio

Tools

Networking

Artist

Environment Artist

Concept

3ds MAX

Maya

Autodesk

Animation

Skeletal Meshes

QA

Automated Scripting

Debug Databases

Localization

Producer

Disengaged from content creation

Overseer

Independent

Freedom to create vs automated jobs in AAA

AAA companies

Subsidiary studios

Outsourcers

Art

Animation

Publishing

Audio

First-Party Studios

Publishers

Outsourcing

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs)

Marketing

Analysts

Free-to-Play

Microtransactions

Community

Blogging

Twitch

Streamers

Issues

Pay Disparity

Poverty

Under-appreciated

Sexism

Representation

Minorities/POC

And this list over-simplifies the complex web these roles create with each other. That being said, the last month or so has consisted of me scouring the internet for resources, deciding on what my long-term and short-term goals are, and orienting myself towards taking on Goliath.

MOVING FORWARD:

After being bombarded with this information, I decided that the best course of action for moi was to shoot for a game engineering/programming role, as I also had a brief two-year stint in astrophysics research and STEM coursework during my undergraduate degree. Another one of my passions, the STEM fields have always held a dear place in my heart and I picked up a lot of programming skills/languages in college, notably Java & Python. Intensive music study has also done wonders for the technically-oriented work I currently do, so I figured it would be fun to challenge myself with STEM-oriented work once again. So far, I hold a great, great admiration for lead game designers like Hideo Kojima and others, so design is also something I’m looking into. RESOURCES:

In doing my research, I’ve found a variety of extremely helpful resources that provided me with the insight to start this journey. I’ll post the most helpful ones below: GameDevUnchained (Podcast/Website): 

This podcast, hosted by Brandon Pham & Larry Charles (both established AAA game developers), explores the current state of affairs in the video game industry. Their conversations are filled with wit, charm, and tons of information, from wage negotiation and employment to indie development and technical direction. No topic is missed* (well, except for the exact technical aspects of being an artist, developer, or programmer). Despite this slight oversight, it’s still worth its weight in gold due to the fact that they bring in a new guest every week who touches on a specific topic. I’ve gained most of my working knowledge about the industry’s complexities from this source. [Currently on episode: 26] Game School Online (GSO): 

This revolutionary piece of pedagogy is an online game development school that is ENTIRELY FREE. Founded and ran by the hosts of GameDevUnchained, GSO’s main focus is free game development education with a focus on artwork, modeling, and technical artistry done through the Unreal 4 engine. The school is optionally supported through Patreon and provides special benefits to subscribers; however, a subscription isn’t necessary to enroll. Enrollment periods happen 4 times a year, with heavy waitlists for non-subscribers due to the need to keep class numbers down. Their educators consist of “Scholars” who teach and monitor the courses, all of whom are active AAA/Indie developers. Notable Scholars include Brandon Pham, Larry Charles, Leo Gonzales, Olaf Piesche (my mentor!), Matt Brown, Tai Chen, and many others. For subscribers, there’s the option to interact 1-on-1 with scholars, serving as lessons and mentorships to poise the budding student to enter the field. I’m currently a $40/month subscriber, which gets me a 30-minute session every month with Olaf. I’d like to stress, however, that at its current state GSO seems heavily oriented towards artists, with the art-oriented roles overshadowing the engineer/programmer roles 8-to-2. In addition, all classes are oriented towards art or design. This means Olaf & Matt are only doing 1-on-1 sessions. -_- *Oh well, better than nothing.*

The next two are both variations on the paid-online-schooling trope, but they seem alright nonetheless... 

Coursera:

Coursera is a platform that hosts specialized “certification” courses that were designed by universities around the world. These certification courses are essentially a compilation of videos, assignments, and online templates that are moderated by online staff (and presumably not monitored by the actual course instructors ever). Each certification consists of about 4-6 classes and takes anywhere from 6 months to a year to complete. Each class runs an average of 1-2 months and has about 1 assignment due every week. There is a peer-grading system which can be iffy at times, but it’s worked out well for me so far. The only downside is that these courses can be EXPENSIVE; however, there are financial aid options for those of us *ahemmeahem* that can’t afford the costs. Luckily, my cost for the first class was waived completely. I’m currently enrolled in the Game Design certification course created by Cal Arts. I’ll be updating you all on my progress every week as I work through this course. Something odd I’ve noticed is that the videos for the Intro to Game Design course are astoundingly short; I’m surprised this course costs anything at all given the kind of information I’ve received out of it so far.

Udemy:

Like its quasi-academic counterpart, Udemy hosts courses created by content creators (I’m not too sure on the qualifications these creators have...) that consists primarily of video tutorials. The beautiful thing about Udemy is that, unlike Coursera, their courses often times cost very little if you go through the right channels! This means promo codes from websites like IGN or your favorite tech reviewer, etc etc. I was fortunate enough to grab the Unreal Crash Course course for $10 through an IGN promotion last month. Also unlike Coursera, there are no assignments or grading systems in place for your work. Instead, there are often forums that host dozens and dozens of posts from current and past students of the course. This feature has felt surprisingly fresh and fun; however, not receiving a lot of direct feedback has its downsides. I’ve been slowly chugging away at this course, having finished 1/4th of it so far. I’ve also found that there tends to be much more technical work to be learned from Udemy as opposed to Coursera (in terms of game development); however, this may just be my limited scope, as I haven’t looked around too much more.

Game Engine Architecture, Third Edition by Jason Gregory 

(Naughty Dog Lead Programmer):

This book is AMAZING for the aspiring game engineer, as it’s filled to the brim with a detailed analysis of common game engine architecture as told by the lead programmer at Naughty Dog (go Uncharted/Last of Us teams!!!!). I’m currently in the second chapter of the book, but to give a brief overview of its entirety along with my own descriptions below each heading:

Introduction

“discusses the ins and outs of the industry

Tools of the Trade

“an in-depth look into programming tools”

Fundamentals of Software Engineering for Games

“development cycles and tool usage”

Parallelism and Concurrent Programming

“the title says it all”

3D Math for Games

“3D geometry and Linear Algebra, along with programming algorithms” (go STEM!)

Engine Support Systems

“a look at memory and systems”

Resources and the File System

“how to handle game assets”

The Game Loop and Real-Time Simulation

“graphics rendering loops and gameplay loops, along with dealing with time”

Human Interface Devices

“dealing with I/O”

Tools for Debugging and Development

“the title says it all”

The Rendering Engine

“rasterization and rending pipelines”

Animation Systems

“skeletal meshes and processing”

Collision and Rigid Body Dynamics

“physics systems and other collision systems” (go STEM!)

Audio

“Dealing with sound design and 3D audio” (go music!)

Introduction to Gameplay Systems

“dealing with data, game objects, and world editors”

Runtime Gameplay Foundation Systems

“dealing with all of the constituent parts and updating the game”

You mean there’s more?

“more to be learned”

As you can tell, there’s a whole lot of information to be gained by reading a textbook like this. Jason states in the Foreword that this is really meant to be used to teach a three-class series on game programming at the university level; however, I find that you’ll be able to understand a lot of this pretty well so long as you have an ample amount of programming experience (preferably with C++). That being said, it’s a perfect springboard for me and I’m so eager to continue that I sort of want to finish writing this entry already so I can get back to it! *o* It cost about $85 for a physical copy and $47 for a digital copy (Kindle).

So, that wraps up my currently used resources list! I hope it can serve as a starting point for some of your own deep-dives into the world-wide-web for resources! CONCLUSION: Thanks for sticking with me this far everyone. I know I didn’t dive into my past that much, but I hope it gives you somewhat of an idea as to who I am. In starting this journey, I’ve realized the importance of documentation and reaching out to build a community with others, so I hope that we can all interact and take this journey together, in some form. Tomorrow I’ll be delving into my current projects that I’m aiming to work on and some of my personal inspiration for taking the game development plunge, as well as discuss what I’m currently working on in terms of study/development. I hope you all have a good day, and never feel like it’s too late to start chasing your dreams again! - Manny Extra: Game of the Day - Disgaea 1 Complete on Nintendo Switch I’ve loved this game since I first played it way back in the early 2000s, so when I heard this was coming to Switch as a slightly remastered port, I couldn’t wait! The updated artwork looks great and I’m eager to get all of those extra scenarios completed! ;) GO SRPGs!

[okneiljos]

aftg headcanons

sorry if this is a mess but i have a lot of feeling/thoughts about this

• matt has donned “true friend” by hannah montana his and neil’s song okay

• neil is a runner and goes on runs a lot when he needs to clear his head and stuff so like what if the foxes started running with him

— kevin goes with him first (nicky was chilling in the dorm eating some ungodly snack and kevin was glaring at him and had this disgusted look so nicky laughed and with a surprise attack got kevin to swallow two whole bites)

 • so kev is like no i need to work off these calories immediately and he sees neil getting ready for a run and just joins him 

       — he and kevin only talk about exy, it’ll take a while for them to actually be able to talk about anything else, but it does happen           

       • matt is second cause he sees them jogging out the window and is like “well shit i didn’t know neil was open to company on his runs (cause sometimes he’s not) and decides he’ll join him next time

— matt is neil’s best bro so they talk about whatever and neil is like since when has this happened but he’s fine with it and is actually glad for the company 

     • a few weeks later it’s dan, then nicky who won’t shut up and keeps blabbing his head off but by this point neil finds it endearing, then allison who tells neil how pretty he is and how she could make him look and i quote “bitchin’” if he let her do his make-up, he politely declines. renee asks him if she can join and neil was going to say no since she unnerves him but he’s trying hard to get over that and says yes and they don’t speak other than her occasional humming

• whenever “circle of life” from lion king and matt is anywhere neil he will pick him up and sing along and all the foxes have so many videos of this along with zoomed in pics of neil’s face while it’s happening and they all think it’s the funniest thing ever (they mostly put on the song just to see it)

• they all have so many videos and pictures of neil and kevin’s reactions to things. kevin mostly to their unhealthy food choices (so they purposely order the thing on the menu most likely to give them a heart-attack) and neil to like anything.

    — they have compilations of neil going off on press and then panning over to kevin who is standing with his hand over his face sighing and muttering things like “why does wymack even let him do this he knows by this point” and “i’m going to murder him at night practice” and “why do i even try like honestly god why are you so against me”

    — they all try to get neil to say his iconic “i’m fine” so they can record it and pan over to any one of the foxes faces like their on the office. they have to have hundreds of these videos by this point honestly. dan puts them all together and it’s more than an hour long, at one of the sleepovers they watch it all and neil is cursing them while they laugh and andrew is muttering “idiot, do you know the definition of that word?” 

• all of them have a lot of sleepovers. they’ll watch movies (they take turns picking) and eat snacks and junk food that kevin complains about and they sometimes play games and they fall asleep on each other and its just really wonderful 

• so when the upperclassmen graduate neil is proud but also feels a little lonely but he voice calls with them all the time but he decides that isn’t enough so he gets rid of the dinosaur (his phone that andrew gave to him so he doesn’t really get rid of it he keeps it in the drawer by his bed) and gets an iphone

— after that all hell is unleashed and he is always facetiming at least one of them. andrew mostly and then matt and dan (but he sees them the most cause of dan being assistant coach) and then nicky and kevin. 

— they all try to call each other at least once a week but theres a lot of them so they have a groupchat. they talk all day in this groupchat and at least three conversations are always happening at once and pictures from the good ‘ol days and recent ones are always being sent 

— bless the thing called skype and google hangouts because now he can talk to more than one of them at once and it’s really great and he loves it and them so much

• they also try to visit each other on any special occasion and when they can’t you best believe they send cards and facetime. 

• neil is most surprised by the times that kevin initiates contact with him after he also graduates. kevin will call and text him reminding him to train and eat properly and keep his reflexes sharp and to insult his skills because kev always records and watches his games. it’s few and far in between that kevin compliments him but when he does neil feels good and proud and awed but he’d never tell kevin that

    — kevin and neil become closer okay i don’t make the rules. they call each other and talk about things other than exy but lets be real these exy junkies mostly talk about exy and each others games and the players on their teams (usually to complain or insult them) and kevin gives him advice 

• when robin comes neil doesn’t feel all that lonely anymore and they are giving matt and neil a run for their money of the level of bro-ness 

• my wife allison plays professionally and you cannot fucking tell me otherwise i’m sorry i don’t make the rules, she becomes pro and is a badass and her team beats kevin’s team once and kevin is pissy about it but he can’t be that mad (although he makes his team practice twice as long for a week straight afterword)

      — speaking on my wife allison didn’t nora say she didn’t play pro and became a fashion designer or something? anyway she still does that and she makes sports gear and work out clothes that make you That Bitch but are also comfortable and practical and she becomes even more rich. everything comes in shades of bright orange, pink, and black

     — every time she sees any of the foxes she brings them clothes from her line and she promotes the line by making the foxes put them on and model them for her. 

     — the most popular ones are matt boyd in a bright orange crop-top and booty shorts, the second most popular being neil in tight compression pants that leaves nothing to the imagination and a pink muscle tee. as soon as the picture of neil is posted his phone is ringing and guess who it is, yes that’s right its andrew. allison shoots neil a wink

     —  eventually she gets a deal with nike and designs shoes and the same thing, though this time she makes dan and renee model them for her. nicky does it on his own and send her pics of him wearing them and she posts them

     — kevin adamantly refuses to model for her but he owns everything from her line but he would never tell her that and he shows his support by taking a picture of him at the gym in the gym mirror and he’s wearing them and allison reposts it and texts him a winky face

     — everything she designs she has them try it first to see if it can withstand practical use so even after they graduate more than half the shit in their closets is bright orange only now theres also varying shades of pink 

     — she also forces her current team members to model for her and they all don’t want to at first until they actually try them and now all her teammates are always sporting her designs while training or at the gym or on court and she’s so proud of herself because she’s made something of herself without her parents 

• now on to kevin, so he learns the piano i have a headcanon (i forget if its actually canon or not but) jean is like a piano prodigy so when he and jean have their bi-weekly calls he begins asking jean for tips and its hard but kevin picks it up a lot faster than he would have expected 

i have so many thoughts on these guys so i’ll do a part two more on like renee, dan, matt, the twinyards and kev. especially aaron cause i don’t think i mentioned him but i have so many about him also so that’ll be in the second part.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Dom Sherwood Controversy -- Thoughts

So, I got no less than 5 asks and messages about my thoughts on the Dom controversy. I really didn't want to open this can of worms. But here goes.

In regards to Dom Sherwood using the "F" word? I personally don't give two shits or any amount of shits for that matter. Why doesn't this matter to me? Because the only thing I care about is Shadowhunters being a good show. That one day, Shadowhunters could become a show that is on par with a show like Supernatural, for instance. It's not currently but I cling onto that hope in order to justify continuing watching this poorly written show. I really don't care if the cast or crew are decent people. I don't need Dom to be a decent person for that to happen. Is he a shitty person for using that word? Possibly. I don't know the context in which he said the word nor do I actually care enough to do the research. Is he a homophobe? Is he not a homophobe? Did he mean his apology? Did he not mean his apology? Who can tell? Certainly none of us because we don't know him on a personal level although some of the fandom likes to think they do. But either way? It doesn’t matter to me. I don't actively watch interviews with the cast because I want to feel connected to them as people. I don't care if they're good or bad people. I just want them to do their job. All I care about is that they give a good portrayal on the show they're working on. Let's take for instance Kat McNamara. She seems like a lovely person. Truly, in the interviews I've seen her in, she's a complete saint and I'm not ashamed to admit I have a healthy amount of adoration for her as a person. Does that stop me from thinking at times that she may be the wrong fit for Clary? No. I've always thought that and I still do at times. Part of it is the writing but another part of it is that whenever Kat tries to portray Clary as fiery and selfless, she comes off as pretentious, condescending, and rude to me. It doesn't stop me from liking Kat as a person. It's just a flaw I find in her portrayal of Clary. Just like when casting was first announced for this show. There was a whole lot of talk about how amazing it was that there are so many POC casted. I personally didn't care. I didn't even notice until the fandom started pointing it out. I don't see race or ethnicity unless it's actually important to the story being told. And thus far in Shadowhunters, Izzy being portrayed by a Latina hasn't been super important to the story. Just like in the show, Lucifer, I had been watching and adoring the show for two seasons before I came across a post in the fandom talking about how amazing it is that the show is so heavily POC casted. When I saw that post, I was like, "Huh. I guess they are. I hadn't really noticed." It's great to see POC have a higher and more quality representation in media but at the end of the day, all I care about is the story being told and if I like the portrayal.

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Matt and Dom are still friends. Again, it doesn't matter to me. As long as they're professional and this problem doesn't get in the way of their portrayal of Alec and Jace and the parabatai bond, they can be bitter enemies for all I care. Are they friends or not? Have they ever been friends? Doesn't matter to me. Cast mates hating each other is nothing new in media. What does matter if the actors can table it and put forth a good end product. 

One of my favorite episodes from the show Supernatural is this episode in Season 6 called The French Mistake. It's basically where Sam and Dean get sent to this parallel universe in which they find out that in this reality their world that they were living in, the world we know as Supernatural, is actually a fictional tv series. Much like it is in our reality. That there is actually a production crew producing their lives. There are a lot of reasons for why I like this episode. First of all, this episode is meta as hell. The French Mistake serves as this outlet for this show and everyone involved to make fun of themselves. But another reason I love this episode is a certain theme they kind of explore a little. All throughout this episode, we have Sam and Dean having to pretend they're Jared and Jensen but they're still behaving with the Winchester brotherly bond we all love about them intact. So on the outside looking in, within the confines of this episode, we have the cast and crew remarking constantly, "What's going on with Jared and Jensen? Why are they talking? Why are they spending off camera time together?" And my favorite iteration of the line, "They're acting weird but at least they're talking now." It's interesting because in the eyes of the fandom, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Mark Sheppard are viewed as really good friends. And in this episode, they're not portrayed this way. In this episode, we see Jared and Jensen as these very rich, very shallow people who don't like each other while in real life in the fandom we see them as great friends. Misha is portrayed as the pinnacle douchey actor obsessed with his twitter fan following instead of being the quirky and likable philanthropist the fandom views him as. Mark isn't in this episode but I'm sure if he was, we would've gotten some equally entertaining parody of him. This episode I enjoy because it introduces this idea that who these people are on the show, how they allow the fandom to perceive them, and who they are in real life can be very different things. These people allow us to see bits and pieces of who they are but none of us can really know as we don't have a personal connection with any of them despite how much we may want to. Also, this episode has an amazing scene where Jared and Jensen have to act badly on purpose and it's just wonderful. I have no idea how the crew was even able to get through one take of filming that scene without dying from laughter. Here it is if you've never seen it. 

Do I have to like Dom as a person to be able to watch Shadowhunters? Absolutely not. All I care is that he gives a good portrayal of Jace. As long as he didn't break any laws, it won't blacken my perception of Jace. And while as horrible as it is to use the "F" word, it's not against the law. If you think that it should be, well then we're going to get into some Freedom of Speech territory and I really don't want to get into any of that with any of you. And whereas you can use the argument that it's wrong for an actor affiliated with a show about tolerance and the progression of LGBTQ relationships in society, it doesn't change the fact that you can still be a part of a show that does deal with those issues and not care about those issues yourself. I bet nowhere in Dom's contract does it say he has to believe in the same societal issues that the show is fighting against. All he needs to bring to the table is the ability to act. That's what he's being paid for. I would also like to point out how hypocritical it is to use the statement that's it's wrong for someone involved with a show about intolerance to use a derogatory slur seeing as how the fandom is pretty intolerant themselves of any opinion they don't agree with. This fandom will crucify anyone who doesn't agree with their very narrow-minded opinions about the show. Which, again, is ironic considering what the show is about. The Shadowhunters fandom is truly a very toxic environment which is why I only spend time within this fandom while the show is airing. Unfortunately, the show is not so good that I can warrant spending their hiatus time in the fandom too. Spending that much time in that toxic of an environment, I'm fairly certain I would grow to hate life. 

And also, this goes along with the themes in The French Mistake. I have a personal belief that you should never meet your heroes. The French Mistake talks about how you can speculate on who that person is but that doesn't mean you know them or even if you should know them. Everyone should be very wary of putting media figures on pedestals. They're human just like us. Some of us are good people, some of us are bad people, some of us exist somewhere in the middle. Just like these media figures. Some of them good people, some of them are bad people and most of them exist somewhere in the middle. By putting that actor on that pedestal, idolizing them and not embracing the truth that you don't actually know them and that they have flaws, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. Idolize the show, idolize the characters but be very careful about how you idolize real people. That's what I do. I love the show Supernatural. I love Castiel as a character. I love Misha Collins' portrayal of him. And I think Misha Collins is an amazing person. His efforts with Random Acts and making a difference in the world is wonderful. His quirky and free thinking personality gives me joy when I watch his panels. The fact that talking about his wife and children can move him to tears of joy and love on a stage in front of a thousand people is beautiful. But I also accept that he probably does have flaws that I may not like. He does say things at his panels that I don't entirely agree with but it doesn't change my perception of him as a person because I accept those things as a part of him. 

I would like to close this with imparting a little bit of wisdom that I've acquired over my life. The word, "faggot" although a terrible and reprehensible word, is also just that, a word. I have been called too many insults to count throughout my life (whether it be my personal sexual preferences or other personal things about me) and it used to bother me until I realized this simple truth: You are the one who chooses to be offended. At the end of the day, words are just a compilation of letters. We give those insults power over us by choosing to be offended. We stop giving meaning to those words and those words lose their hold over us. Once I stopped seeing words like faggot or haole or whore or bastard as derogatory terms and just saw them as words and shake them off like they're yesterday's trash, I was much happier. Does it give Dom a pass? No, certainly not. Am I willing to forgive him for it if he was one of those actors that I did actively follow and idolize? Probably not. But would I also think he's a terrible person? Probably not because I don't know what was going through his head when he said it. I don't know the guy. I don't know if he said the word because he's a homphobe or not. I can't know because I don't know who he is as a person. I don't pass negative judgement on people I don't know. And I don't really care to pass any kind of judgement, be it good or bad, in Dom's case. As long as he gives a good portrayal of Jace, that's all that matters to me. I just want these actors to do a good job. Just like with Misha Collins, all I really care is that he gives a good portrayal of Castiel/Jimmy/Lucifer, whoever he happens to be portraying at the time. The fact that he seems to be in possession of this very beautiful soul is just something extra but hey, I'll take it. If theses actors are decent people outside of the work place, hey, that's icing on the cake but I don't necessarily need that icing to enjoy that cake. 

But anyway, that's my stance on this very controversial topic with Dom. I personally don't care. I kind of rambled there for a bit but I feel like I got my point across. I have a feeling I'm going to lose a lot of followers but hey, that's life. I'm just doing me. You don't like it? You can either deal with it or get out. Or you can send me a mean message or a mean anonymous ask. I know how you trolls work. You're no different than the bullies I had in high school. And much like my bullies in high school, if you try to belittle me in any way, I'll ignore you. So, there's that.