#so that was obv the main inspiration behind this piece

[neon-ufo]

And it seems like all is dying and would leave the world to mourn In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn I'm alive, I'm alive

Song for January: The Last Unicorn by America

~~~ Posting a bit late, but here's the first monthly Lubi of 2024! It really felt like all I wanted to draw in January was horses, so no matter what I tried to do for this month's Lubi, it just didn't work out. Until I just turned him into a horse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[theangstyboiblog]

Shower Time - Saul Silva x Reader Smut

@kingunder221b Hey! Could I request a Saul Silva x reader, smut, scenario: a fight, maybe Saul is jealous over something, arguing and then obvs make up smut and some fluff in the end. You rock!

Ahhhh I love this and while I’m not super into writing jealous characters, I know it happens. I tried to put that in but gah it was hard and I was scared I was making Saul petty. So, we ended up with this. Also somehow this went super angsty in the middle and it took everything in me to pull it back to fluff at the end. <3

Pairing: Saul Silva x Reader

Wordcount: 2.6k

Warnings: smut most definitely happens, I was inspired <3 Some language.

Quick Summary: Saul and Y/N have been dating since they attended Alfea. Now they are on different specialist teams at the Battalion in Solaria. When Saul hears Y/N’s team is transferring to Eraklyon, questions start to hound him.

Saul POV

Saul tried not to think about it. He tried to look happy for you, tried to be supportive. He knew, when you’d been assigned to differing teams, that at some point one of you would have to leave. But he had always thought that he would be the one leaving and that thought had been easier to bear.

Leaving was so much easier than staying. He wasn’t ready to be the one left behind.

One year seemed like an endless eternal road that had no end, that just kept moving forward while his feet seemed to sink into the dirt. His stomach churned. One year. You’d be away for a year and if the burned one attacks worsened, maybe even longer.

Heaving a sigh, he glanced up at the stars and turned back around to lean against the trunk of the tree, peering down the hill at the bonfire. Whoops and hollers and music filled the air as the battalion celebrated your team’s last night in Solaria before you shipped out tomorrow at noon. He bit the inside of his cheek as a familiar figure broke away from the crowd and climbed up the hill towards him. Each step you took closer to him, sent a spiral of questions through his head.

What if something happens?

What if you don’t come back?

What if I never see you again?

What if you forget me? What if I forget you?

That last question had him shaking his head. There was no way in hell he’d ever forget you, move on without you, love anyone else. But the distance. The distance presented an immeasurable strain that weighed on his shoulders every second. A wave of anger he didn’t know what to do with hit him and he narrowed his eyes as you came nearer. He knew he wasn’t mad at you but the anger needed to go somewhere and he didn’t trust himself to not aim it at you. That was why he was up the hill and not down partying with everyone else.

Lifting his cup, he took a quick sip of beer and shook his head with aggravation. God knows he loved a good party.

Your POV

“Hey,” you said softly, drawing closer to the tree at the top of the hill, the light of the moon helping you make out just the slight shadow of a man, the glint of eyes peering over at you. Your voice almost breathless from the dancing and the laughing. “What’re you doing up here?”

“Thinking,” Saul’s reply came, low and gravelly as if he’d spent the day shouting, which if you remembered your afternoon sparring drills correctly, he had.

You smirked. “Well, that’s never a good sign.” He didn’t say anything and you could practically hear the gears working overtime inside that head of his. Slipping your hands in your pockets, you sighed and moved closer, the shadows of the branched blocking out what little light came from the sky. “What are you thinking?” You asked softly, leaning against the tree and peering up at him. He didn’t look at you and you didn’t touch him, even though keeping your hands to yourself was killing you.

“You,” he said finally, as he looked up at the stars.

“Aww,” you sang, “it’s like you know just what to say, Saul.”

He cut his eyes at you. “Not really. What I want to say is…” he trailed off and turned back to the sky. You waited. You gave him time. You could hear the seconds ticking by. You leaned to the side, trying to catch his gaze again.

“What you want to say is…?” you prompted.

Saul’s head turned and he looked down at you with a pain in his eyes that you rarely ever saw. It was a lonely sort of pain usually reserved for late nights. For when a friend died, for when he spoke about his family. Glimpses of it had escaped him before but nothing like this. This somber gaze didn’t have a mask, it wasn’t trying to hide itself.

He turned away. “You should head back to the party,” he said nodding as a fountain of sparks erupted from the bonfire below, one of the fire fairies having a little too much fun.

Your mouth dropped open. “What the fuck?” You pushed off the tree as he sighed.

“Y/N…”

“No, you are not doing this on my last night here. You’re not shutting me out just to avoid handling your feelings and talk to me like the grown ass man you are.”

Saul rounded on you. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said, pointing down the hill. “This is why I’m up here and not down there.”

“Hiding,” you nodded your head, “you’re up here hiding because you’re scared—”

“I am scared!” he said, stepping towards you, voice raised. You stepped back as he continued. “You’re leaving and all I can think of is that this might be the last time I see you and I feel like I can’t breathe. And everyone else is celebrating it but I can’t, Y/N. Every scenario has gone through my head since your orders came through and every bad thought, every bad thing that could possibly happen— I’ve thought about it and it terrifies me.” Saul took a deep breath as you cupped his cheek, tears pricking at your eyes as his hands settled on your waist. He pulled you to him and you pressed your face into the corner of his neck. His lips pressed against your temple as his voice cracked. “I don’t want to be alone again,” he whispered.

The dam burst and your tears fell as you held onto him tighter shaking your head. You leaned back.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” you told him catching his face between your hands as he shook his head. “But you don’t know what’s going to happen either,” he leaned against you, hands shaking as they moved to press into your back. “I will fight like hell to come back to you though and I expect you to be here when I do.”

Saul blinked and stared into your eyes as you held your own steady gaze. Unspoken words passed between you.

“I’ll be here,” he murmured finally.

“All in one piece,” you told him, as the thought struck you that if you didn’t say it, you’d most likely come back to half a Saul.

“All in one piece, or as close to it as possible,” he said, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Reaching down, you pulled his hand away from your body, your fingers sliding perfectly to lock with his. You stepped back leading him after you, guiding him away from the bonfire and back towards the main camp. He narrowed his eyes.

“Y/N?” he called your name, lilting that last syllable teasingly.

You shrugged, picking up the pace. “If everyone is here, then that means we might actually have a chance for once,” you told him. Turning around you tugged on his hand and quietly made your way back to base.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steam had long since filled the room as you bathed and readied yourself, eyes casually glancing towards the door to the baths. You ground your teeth in annoyance, feeling as if you’d been in the showers forever, long since cleaned and wound tightly on an edge you had to force yourself to cling to. You almost wondered if he had gotten lost somewhere.

If he doesn’t hurry up, I swear to god.

Almost as if he had known what you were thinking, the door to the baths opened and Saul slipped inside, looking over his shoulder as if he’d been chased.

“What took you so long?” you hissed, and he spun around a blush creeping over his cheeks as he peered through the steam, finally laying eyes on you in the stall at the end of the row.

“Sneaking into the women’s shower room is harder than it sounds,” he murmured, glancing at the door behind him. You rolled your eyes as he peeled off his jacket, followed by his shirt.

“It can’t be that hard. I hear Andreas does it regularly.”

Saul tossed his shirt onto the bench and turned to you, eyebrows inching up ever higher. “What?” he asked, his voice half surprised and maybe a quarter impressed and another quarter disturbed.

“Did you get one?” You asked, ignoring the question as you  peered over the half wall of the shower stall. Saul reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a little square package with a smirk. You stepped back, water rushing down on your shoulders. “Hurry up then,” you told him as you turned around, pushing your hair back as the water washed over your face soothingly. The thud of boots echoed on the tile and you smiled leaning back out of the water, taking a deep breath. The door to your stall squeaked open and you glanced over your shoulder as cool hands ran over the skin of your waist.

“Did you get started without me?” Saul asked, lips ghosting over the shell of your ear. His left hand dropped lower and lower before rejoining his other hand, hugging you to him. You chuckled.

“Maybe?” you teased. “You were gone for a long time.”

“Naughty,” he mumbled lowly. His arms tightened around you as he leaned down and ran his lips down your neck and across the back of your shoulder. You pursed your lips trying to hide your smile as he ran a hand over your flesh a warm pressure tightening around you whenever he gripped just the right spot. Shaking your head, you twisted in his arms, wrapping your own around his neck.

“You,” you leaned forward and mouthed at his collarbone, teeth faintly scraping over the skin as he took in a quick breath, “are just mad that you didn’t get to watch.” You ran your hand over his stomach, smirking at the tensing muscles as you moved lower. You raised an eyebrow as you took him in your hand. “But you’re here now,” you rose on your tiptoes, pressing your lips to his lightly at first.

Saul’s hand drifted down, palming the cheek of your ass as the kiss deepened and you moved your hand around him, squeezing just enough to make him break out in a gasp against you. You smiled as his hands tangled in your hair and he pulled you back in for another kiss, his tongue lightly teasing yours. Together, you stayed like that, your back against the wall, him trapping you against it, warm water rushing over the both of you adding to the already building heat. Your hand stayed on his cock as his knee slipped between your thighs, one hand moving between you until you felt him pressing into you.

“Saul…” you moaned his name as he ground into your palm, the feel of his fingers sending a shock of pleasure up the ladder of your spine.

“You really did start without me,” he murmured nipping at your skin. A flash of heat had you burying your face in his neck, releasing him to wrap your arms round his shoulders. “You ready?” he asked, crooking his fingers.

You ground down and groaned. “Just hurry up,” you breathed, pushing at his chest.

Saul’s shoulders shook as his hands left you empty, a soft whine leaving you as he stepped back, turning on his heel. Cocking your head, you watched as he stepped out of the stall and went to the bench, bending down to pick something up. He tossed the empty wrapper on the bench and looked down working the condom over his length. Turning around you pulled your hair over one shoulder and faced the wall, closing your eyes, and breathing in nice and deep.

When the door creaked open, you set your hands against the tile wall as he came up behind you. His lips latched on to your skin, tongue laving at the droplets of water that rolled from the nape of your neck and dove down your spine. He pulled you to him, hands guiding your hips back as you spread your legs and leaned against the wall, bracing yourself as he pressed his cock against you. He pushed in.

“Oh fuck,” you moaned, closing your eyes as he moved within you, sliding deeper and deeper. You reached to the side, grabbing the top of the side of the stall as your knees bent. His arms snaked around you pulling you back against him as if he wanted there to be as little room between you as possible. He bucked and you reached back, gripping his hip. “Wait, wait, wait,” you breathed as you felt every inch of him throb inside.

A hot shot of air blew over your neck as he groaned. But his hips stilled and you nearly thanked him, but it felt like a vice was wrapped around your lungs.

“Y/N,” he rasped after a moment, “I can’t… fuck.” He bowed down pressing his forehead to your shoulder and you knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Neither could you. Biting your lip, you flexed your hips, rolling against him slowly as the breath was pushed from your lungs. He stiffened before his hands dropped to your hips and he pulled away before thrusting back against you.

Water on tile, skin on skin, breathy whines and drawn-out moans filled the room as you each found your shared rhythm and fell into sync. Harder. Faster. Slow and grinding. Everything. You clawed at the wall as you rose up, arching back against him as your hand moved between your legs.

With a hiss, Saul’s rhythm stuttered without warning as he thrusted again and again, his voice calling out hoarsely as he came grinding against you. Your head dropped forward with a gasp as he settled deep inside. Then an emptiness filled you as he slipped out. You mewled as you turned around to face him, still touching yourself as you leaned against the shower wall. He settled on one side of the stall, chest heaving as he watched you, mouth open, eyes dropping down to watch as you teased your center.

“Saul,” you moaned his name, turning your head to the side as the pleasure condensed into a tight ball in your belly. “Saul, I want to… I need…”

Pushing off the wall he sauntered over to you pressing his hand over yours helping you along as he mouthed his way across your collarbones.

“Come for me, love,” he sighed, “that’s it. Yeah—“

Beyond control your hips moved faster and faster, body shaking as you cried out. Your voice echoed through the room, so loud you were sure that if anyone was in the hallway, they would most definitely hear you. But then your cries died down as Saul kissed you, still working you through your climax. Your chest rose and fell as the high finally died down, your nails prying away from his skin as you broke away, breathless. Saul leaned against you, holding you up as your legs threatened to give out. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to survive without you,” he breathed as he kissed you, moving from your mouth to your cheek, finally resting against your temple.

“There’s always phone sex,” you pointed out. Saul’s eyes lifted up as he considered it.

“It’d be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it?” he asked, looking back down at you, the back if his fingers running over your cheek. “Doing it in the commons. Where anyone could hear.”

You clicked your tongue and sighed, running your hands through his wet hair.

“That’s why I told you to get a cell phone, Lieutenant Silva, for the privacy.”

[amplesalty]

Day 26 - The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

As it is written in the great traditions of this blog, all films starting with ‘The’ must immediately be followed by a second movie starting with ‘The’. Just ignore that whole Town That Dreaded Sundown misstep...Still, we have the earliest point on our timeline for this year, all the way back in the 20’s. That’s a final answer as well, I don’t have plans to go back to the 1910’s in these last few days. I’ll have to plan that out in a future year, maybe 2021. Give the cinematic world a chance to release some good movies in 2020 and then just have a movie from every decade from like the 1900’s onwards.

This was the era before talkies but I’m a little confused on the sound used here. I was always under the impression that music would be performed live at a screening to accompany the pictures or maybe there’d be a recording of music played alongside it. There is music here but there’s also some sound effects thrown in and crowd noise during certain parts. There’s no dialogue though so maybe this is like some sort of transitional period between the silent and sound era where they were experimenting with limited sound?

There’s a sense of familiarity in this movie, it being a Universal picture so it has Carl Laemmele’s name slapped all over it. But also you have Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, who was also Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Plus, Mary Philbin as the love interest Dea, who played Christine Daae in the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera. Apparently Lon Chaney was meant to play Gwynplaine here but due to difficulties in obtaining the rights to adapt the story, they ended up making Phantom instead. This was a story written by Victor Hugo and published in 1869, Hugo also known for Les Mis and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

That and providing the names for Victor and Hugo: Bunglers in Crime.

Of course, the massive elephant in the room is the grinning visage of Gwynplaine on the poster there, very much inspirational for a certain clown character in the future. That’s right, he’s the prototypical Krusty. No wait, the other one...

To be honest, this isn’t really a horror movie but there’s something creepy about that face. It ties into that early Universal thing and with Joker in the cinema at the moment, what better time to watch this? I’m getting vibes of Cesar Romero here moreso than any other version. Minus the painted moustache, obvs.

Before we start, let’s pan over the credits, specifically looking at the dog. Calling it Homo really throws me off at times. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be short for something but it’s kinda funny when it cuts to the text to show what the characters are saying and you get “Shut up, Homo!”.

Our story takes place in 17th century England, with King James II dispatching with one of his rivals, Lord Clancharlie, who he sends to the Iron Lady, not Maggie Thatcher but some form of Iron Miaden device. To make matters worse, Clancharlie’s son has been sold off to Comprachicos who have disfigured him with a permanent Chelsea smile so that he may ‘laugh forever at his fool of a father’. The Comprachicos are banished and leave the child behind, he finds a blind baby beside its mother who has frozen to death and he seeks shelter at the caravan of Ursus.

Time passes to the children all grown up and Gwynplaine is now famous as a travelling clown known as ‘The Laughing Man’. Hugh Morrus?

What’s really weird is that Gwynplaine and Dea are now romantically linked. Presumably they grew up together with a sibling sort of bond so that’s a bit creepy. He still has some reluctance though as he feels inadequate, thinking himself not good enough for her due to his disfigurement.

Meanwhile, Duchess Josiana takes a shine to him. Maybe she just has a thing for disfigurement or she’s just really put off by the man she’s arranged to be married to. Or maybe he’s put off by her, he looks a little Tutti Frutti, if you know what I mean...

The former court jester Barkilphedro, now working under Queen Anne, comes to learn of the lineage of Gwynplaine but things don’t pan out quite as I was expecting. He always comes off quite devious so I thought he was going to start manipulating things to his own ends, maybe some blackmail here or there. It starts going that way as the Comprachico that originally discovered the truth is arrested and ‘dies’ under mysterious circumstances but Barkilphedro pretty much tells the Queen and she puts things in motion to have Gwynplaine restored to power and married to the Duchess so she can keep herself in the life she’s become accustomed. Maybe Bark is more loyal than I thought, he still acts in an underhanded manner by trying to separate Gwynplaine from his old life and Dea but he’s still acting in the interest of the royal family.

It’s definitely an emotional piece at times, just the general isolation that Gwynplaine has existed in from childhood and continues to suffer now with people mocking his appearance. There’s a bittersweet moment as well later on where the carnival has been led to believe that Gwynplaine has died whilst in custody but, in order to spare her feelings, Ursus tells everyone that the show must go on and the crew fake the sound of the cheering crowd. Even through his own grief, his main concern is to tell her to listen to the adoring crowd that loves Gwynplaine more than ever.

It feels a little long but I don’t know how much of that is down to having to stall so you can read the dialogue between characters or read signs or letters that would be quickly summed up through normal speech. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a silent movie, I always feel slightly lost during them as they’re something you have to focus on and my attention span always fails me. It is something that intrigues me though, the idea of them being more universal and being able to convey things through body language and facial expressions alone. Obviously Gwynplaine’s face is very striking but Ursus can be very expressive at times and Bark always seems to have a devilish look on his face.

In all of that near 2 hrs though, the biggest disappointment is that still couldn’t find time to show us the 5 legged cow. They talk up this big attraction as part of the freaks on show, like the two snouted pig, at the carnival but all we get is a distant crowd shot. Don’t promise a 5 legged cow if you can’t deliver!

[chrishoulihan]

FYF ADVENTCHEA

So this shit turned into a fucking novel, I’m putting it under a cut and it’s just as much for my own recollection as it is for anyone who wants to hear about my festival weekend. Get into it

So I arrived in LA on Thursday morning after my flight was delayed by an hour and ended up getting there at the exact same time as Anna A @yourveryeyes which was fortuitous! We took a Lyft to Exposition Park to pick up her wristband for the festival, wandered around a little bit, and ended up taking the Metro downtown to meet up with Kylie @electric-candyman who was GREAT TO MEET and was also going to the festival, and her friend Chris who doesn’t have a Tumblr afaik and was going to both FYF and the Planetarium show that night. We went to MOCA which was pretty sweet, they had a Rothko room and a few Rauschenberg pieces that were really cool to see in person. After that Anna and I split off to go to Hollywood and check out Amoeba on our way to Sufjan and that was obviously amazing, I didn’t have enough space in the bags I packed to buy any records (which was by design, my broke ass can’t afford to drop a lot of money on vacation and you can’t waste money on stuff if you don’t have room to carry it home *tapping head guy meme*) but I bought a little heart-eyed cat emoji pin as a souvenir and I definitely wanted to buy 5000 things I couldn’t have.

From there we went to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for Planetarium and met up with Anna L @louisdebumhole ANN- SQUAD REUNITED HELL YEAH. We got to the cemetery and went in all together like over an hour after the doors opened but since it was a lawn show there was still barely anyone lined up at the stage by the time we got there and we got just behind the rail?? AMAZING. I haven’t had the opportunity for rail at a Sufjan show since the Christmas pageant in 2012. Chris showed up not too long after us and joined us right by the stage and Anna L’s friend was there on the rail too so it was a party.

OBVIOUSLY PLANETARIUM WAS INCREDIBLE. My dumb ass forgot to save my Instagram story so I don’t have any of my own videos but it was so great. Sufjan wore his stupid beautiful clashing pajama suit and some fuckin moon boots and he looked fabulous and sang like an angel and said a lot of nonsensical inspirational stuff (like this which is the only video I managed to salvage.) The whole record sounds even richer and fuller live; Jupiter, Moon, and Venus sounded especially amazing. AND fun fact, Matt Berninger was there and watched the entire show from the left side of the stage! My indie dad Matty B supporting his homies!! I also got a setlist after the show ended, which was exciting even though of course it’s literally just a list of planets and in the exact same order as the record lmao. But it’s my first Sufjan-related setlist and I will cherish it forever.

So we got back to Anna L’s house I think around midnight that night and by then I had been awake for like 21 hours so I was exhausted and basically passed out as soon as I could. Next day was the START OF FYF and Anna A/Kylie/Chris and I decided that we wanted to go for Bjork rail, since she was the first act on the main stage on Friday and there weren’t really any other bands playing before her elsewhere that we were dying to see. Before we went to the festival Anna A and I hung out with her friend Jen who was great, we got boba and then went downtown to The Last Bookstore, which was bomb, and had lunch at Grand Central Market. Got to the festival about half an hour before the gates opened, made it through the long ass queue, and went immediately to the main stage where we got basically center-right just behind the rail!! For fucking Bjork!!! Commence freaking out for the next three hours. Chris and Kylie showed up later right behind us and it was such a fun and easy queueing experience for me, everyone around us was super chill and everyone was so hype to see Bjork that we pretty much just looked out for each other and bonded over our mutual fandom. Anna and I had intended to see Bjork together in NYC back in 2015 but it got cancelled so this was a LONG TIME COMING and I’m so glad that we were able to make it happen.

So Bjork was the first set of my whole festival weekend and honestly it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen?? SHE WAS AMAZING and I knew I was gonna be emotional but I wasn’t fucking prepared for how surreal and incredible it felt to hear THAT VOICE in person and to be that close to her while it happened. Unreal. She had Arca with her as her DJ and a whole string ensemble, and she came out wearing a glow in the dark lime green headdress mask thing and a huge puffy dress that made her look like a beautiful pinata. Everything about it was fucking perfect; she did at least one song from every record except Vespertine. Multiples from Vulnicura/Homogenic/Post, Come to Me, Mouth’s Cradle, Wanderlust, Mutual Core. Fucking awesome. Favorites for me were probably Joga (CRIED), Mouth’s Cradle (fuckin bomb arrangement and a huge surprise), Isobel & Bachelorette (two of my all time faves), Notget and Hyperballad which had LITERAL FIREWORKS AND FIREBALLS going off onstage behind her?? What the fuck?? Amazing. And it was the most fun and loving group of people on the rail I’ve ever been part of; everyone around me was so genuinely excited and emotional and singing along and I could FEEL THE LOVE.

So that was an amazing start to the festival obviously and after Bjork we met up with Anna L and went straight to go see Anderson Paak who I missed BOTH TIMES he was here in Portland last year because I’m an idiot, and WOW he is so great live!! I’m actively offended that he is not my boyfriend tbh, he has the most beautiful and infectious smile I’ve ever seen on a human being. Big ol dance party up in the lawn stage. After that we went back to the main stage to watch Missy Elliott for a while and that was a lot of fun; found out after the fact that Bjork and fucking BEYONCE were watching off stage, so like, now I can say I have been in the presence of Beyonce. Went to Flying Lotus early which was the last set of the night to get a good view, with our sweet Flylo-branded 3D glasses obv. Flylo was amazing as always and the 3D show was awesome, I hope he takes it on the road cause that shit was fire. I’m also really into the mystical shaman look he seems to be cultivating lately lmao, and he looks cute as hell with the longer hair!! One of the biggest highlights of the whole weekend for me was when he started the Captain Murphy stuff, got one verse through The Killing Joke, and then was like “you know what fuck this I changed my mind, I want to do this song cause I never get the chance to do it” and fucking busted out with COSPLAY, which is only my favorite Captain Murphy track ever!!! I wasn’t expecting it cause it’s pretty obscure even for the Captain Murphy stuff and I lost my goddamn mind it was so much fun. (Gotta say though that the longer he keeps riding out Murphy tracks from 2012 at his live shows, the more egregious it is that he still hasn’t fuckin dropped a Murphy album or any substantial Murphy release since then. Come on bro. I’ve been waiting 5 years) ANYWAY so that was great of course. Day One = big success.

Day Two! Before we went to the festival that day we met up and had lunch with Anna L’s bf Jesus, who had a Saturday/Sunday festival pass and is a lovely man with great taste in music and cat photos and baseball caps. First set of the day for me was Thundercat and it was my SIXTH time seeing him live, which is hilarious (gonna be 7 times in September.) One of the first things he said to the crowd after getting on stage was “you guys look like you smell weird,” which was accurate. Obviously he’s always great live and I loved getting to hear more of the Drunk songs since the last time I saw him. He’s also rocking some pretty sweet neon pink dreads right now. Caught the end of Noname’s set with Anna A and Chris afterwards and really enjoyed it! I want to check out her album now cause she was great. Grabbed some food and then the whole crew met up together again to see Perfume Genius – GORGEOUS. I’d never seen him live before and he’s so captivating to watch. His performance of Slip Away to close the set was one of my favorites of the whole weekend.

After that I ended up splitting up with everyone, watched some of Arca’s set but ended up leaving to go hang out on the lawn before Erykah Badu because my feet were killing me and I really needed to sit down and recharge. Erykah was supposed to go on at 9:50; cut to 10:15 and she still hasn’t gone on and I was already planning on cutting out of her set at 10:30 to try and snag a semi decent spot for Frank Ocean, so I said fuck it and bailed to go do that. BUMMED I DIDN’T GET TO SEE HER TBH I was really looking forward to it. But it’s kinda good that I left sooner rather than later because the main stage was already pretty packed by 10:30 for Frank. I got an okay spot to the right of the stage probably about 10+ rows back from his platform catwalk thing, and it was easily the most crowded audience I was in all weekend. Talk about being packed like sardines it was madness, if I had showed up like 10 minutes later than I did I would have had an absolutely shit view.

So like…..FRANK FUCKING OCEAN. Never ever thought the day would come that I’d see him live, and the whole experience was so incredibly special to me. I DEFINITELY cried buckets when he sang Lens, which has weirdly become one of my all time favorite tracks in the last few months, and Ivy really really got to me out of nowhere too. Literally everyone around me within earshot sang along to every single word of every song and it was amazing. He played an unreleased cover of some old school funk track that was absolute straight fucking fire, me and the girl next to me danced our asses off together. That shit better get an official release on his radio show like he said he was planning!! Also Brad Pitt was on stage at one point and that was HILARIOUS tbh I wish I had gotten any sort of video of that myself, but the way the wasted dude behind me shouted “WHAT THE FUUUCK” when he popped up on screen will remain fresh in my memory forever. The whole show was gorgeous and I just LOVE FRANK OCEAN!!! I want him to tour so bad so I can actually plan out a scenario where I can get rail for his show and have a better view.

Aaaand Day Three. Got to the festival kinda lateish because the first act the Ann- Squad wanted to see wasn’t till after 6 (Little Dragon), so once we got there we took some photos and wandered around a bit, met back up with Chris and Kylie and took these majestic photobooth pictures, and then Anna A and I went to Little Dragon early for a good spot. I had never seen them before and it was a blast, just a total dance party. They mostly played stuff from Season High which was fine by me cause that album fuckin bangs. Then mood whiplash when we went straight from Little Dragon to Moses Sumney lmao. We got to Moses’ set right when he started our mutual fave Lonely World, serendipitous tbh!! He is beautiful and I loooove the lighting setup he’s got going for his show, it felt really unique to me among the loud dancey festival fare.

After that we went back to the main stage for Solange, which was great; I’m not as familiar with her music as I could be tbh but I really enjoyed how conceptual and dance-oriented her show was. At one point a whole massive brass section streamed in out of nowhere just for one song and it was fuckin awesome. Towards the end of Solange’s set Kylie texted me to say that if we hurried there was still a little bit of rail space left for Run the Jewels in fifteen minutes, to which we were immediately like UHH YES WTF and hustled our way the fuck over – made it in time, got just behind the rail for motherfucking Run the Jewels right before they went on somehow, *Killer Mike voice* goddammit it’s a motherfucking miracle. Give Kylie 5000 gold medals tbh. And RTJ ended up being probably my favorite non-headlining set of the weekend, SO MUCH FUN. The crowd was fucking nuts, everyone around me was going stupidly hard, and I discovered that I know pretty much every word of RTJ3 lmao. The only thing that could have made it more perfect would have been if they’d done Panther Like A Panther, WHICH THEY DIDN’T and was greatly missed by me. But it was amazing. I’m kind of in love with El-P’s ridiculous ass tbh.

Last show of the weekend – Nine Inch Nails!! Who I love!!!!! And hadn’t seen live in almost four years!!!!!! I’m always fucking trash for Nine Inch Nails honestly, their live shows just turn me into a raging dancing idiot and this was no exception. ‘Wish’ will always be one of my favorite songs to hear live from any band ever. Also got to hear Something I Can Never Have and Reptile for the first time ever for me which was awesome!! Bold move of Trent to throw in Something I Can Never Have as the fourth song in a festival set but I was loving it. Like I said yesterday I randomly lost my fucking mind to The Hand That Feeds lmao, I was actually jumping around like a moron. The newer songs were great too, Field On Fire FUCKING BANGS live holy shit. Basically it was just so great to cap off the weekend with band that I’ve loved for ten years and are always fucking immaculate live. And then when it was all over I got chicken strips and fries and walked out of the festival with the fam eating my delicious food. Perfection.

So that was my weekend and I honestly could not have dreamed of having a better time. I’m so so glad that I was able to do this, see some of my favorite bands with an awesome group of people who love music just as much as I do, get out of town and clear my head, and find some healing at a time when I really needed it. I feel very lucky.

[vampgirl]

SO disappointed in the botw trailer honestly. The sky stuff is cool, I will give them this. Do not know what I even expected after they decided to put Skyward Sword on the switch, they might even play into that lore in this game.

But adding sky islands does nothing to the og map!!! Why would they keep the same map for this if you’re going to be in the sky?? I don’t feel like the two compare at all. Why on earth would I fuck around on a map I’ve already spent hundreds of hours on if there’s sky land above me? And what point will there even be to go down in the first place? Unless the sky area is just for a more dungeon/shriney experience, but that would mean that once you’re done there there’s almost no reason to stay.

Anyways what I wanted was underground + underwater exploration. I want this to be a changed hyrule, at least a few years on from the last game. Enough time has passed that the effort Zelda’s been putting into rebuilding has really started to blossom. There’s new towns and villages, and the existing ones from the old game have been expanded upon, with more/bigger shops, new npcs, etc. Maybe now that the calamity’s been defeated new species of plants and animals have sprung up or come back to land now that there isn’t a massive evil pig cloud fucking shit up.

And THEN you add whatever happens with the castle into mix. I’m totally fine with it going into the sky, works perfectly with my plan. Maybe the game starts you off on the ground, you’re free to roam and explore as you please. Doing side quests and stuff. Hopefully they expand on the side quests and add side-quest lines. But at some point you go have to go visit Zelda at the castle, she found something mysterious, blah blah falling blah blah ganon blah blah.

Whatever the two of you find causes the castle to rise up into the sky, taking huge chunks of hyrule up with it. These chunks left behind fill with water or expose massive caves and tunnels (maybe even exposing a city). The new cities now have pieces missing, important landmarks from the first game have now been changed, and falling chunks of land have further marred the landscape.

You now have the ability to swim underwater. Maybe it’s available from the start, but now you have somewhere to GO. Traverse through caves and tunnels that are partially filled with water. You can upgrade your air capacity as well as stamina, making it harder for things like climbing to get too easy and therefore boring quite as fast. There’s dungeons, new enemies, new shrines. SUNKEN shrines. New underground and underwater biomes. Villages and cities underground, maybe another sheikah village, the only place they felt they could be safe or study in piece or whatever, gorons obv are perfect here, and another zora village where they’re more inspired by deep deep sea creatures. Axolotl zora anyone? Some kind of hugeass cavern with a settlement of Bat-Rito. Like the possibilities are fucking endless.

And I still think the sky is a good idea! The same stuff can all be applied there, but I feel like it’s on a way smaller and more limited scale. Adding in the sky land stuff or whatever ADDS to the world but it doesn’t change it, and if they don’t find a way to change it (drastically) then what point is there for players to go back down? I know people with over 600 hours on that game. And while that isn’t the norm, at the end of the day exploring the world for the very first time was what made the first game. The awe and wonder of simply discovering something, like literally who needs crack. You know who doesn’t? The me from 2019 who played botw for the first time.

Oh and also let us play as Zelda like obviously. Fucking obviously Nintendo you stupid ass baby company. Zelda is stuck on the ground trying to figure things out while link does sky adventures. Obviously she wouldn’t have planned for this playing as her starts you out with little to nothing, putting you in a similar position to the main game. Give her the sheikah slate this time but with her big girl brain she tweaks it or something idfk. She can use magic. You can switch between the two at will and in order to progress on each side you need to unlock stuff for each other, and when you beat it you can play either one at will like this is so simple.

And yes I know that if tiny brained little money grubbing mr nintendos decide to let us play as Zelda it will be locked behind a dlc paywall but this is MY dream botw 2. Anyways wish I knew how to put a link in this for continued reading or whatever on mobile sorry it’s so long ^-^ if you read this far then wow... wow but also talk to me about it <33333 thanks for coming 2 my Ted talk