#slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

When reading fanfic I'm pretty accepting of specific headcanons being involved or the characters being ooc sometimes but the funniest thing that I just could not get behind at all was when I was reading a mattxmello fic and they were both specifically stated to be 6ft / 182cm.

And their height was brought up multiple times, they were repeatedly described as being tall people. Like hey op it's okay for you accept that they're short kings I promise being 5'6 / 170cm is fine

#death note #mello #death note mello #mello death note #mihael keehl #dn mello #death note matt #matt death note #mellodramattic #mattxmello #dn matt #matt jeevas #mail jeevas #mello keehl #if the height conversions are wrong somehow then i am. sorry. i briefly googled it lol #slogs (snail blogs) #changed my url never changed the tag #anyway yeah let matt and mello be short! 😤

[drneilfox]

Scarlet's Swords: Music Films Book Blog 10 (July 2021)

A rollercoaster of a month emotionally with ‘the book’. So many moments of insecurity and anxiety washed away by a series of related and tangential moments and experiences. I went on annual leave finally, to await the arrival of our new baby and to spend a few weeks as a family with little to no responsibility or expectation beyond that. It was freeing to put on my out of office at work and simultaneously put a quasi-OOO on the book for the foreseeable. It might have been foolish given how far behind where I wanted to be I am currently, but it was liberating.

It caused me to rethink my approach, or at least know I need to (I haven’t done it yet because I’m stepping back a tad). In the downtime away from writing I have been tinkering and moving forward at a snail’s pace. One thing I did was to map out all the films I still need to see or see again, or at least have told myself I need to see or see again. It’s up near the 300. Obviously I can’t watch that many and write and read and edit and submit my first draft in February 2022. So I stopped worrying that I had to. I have been prioritising viewing and making peace with the fact that I can’t see everything. It’s weird how pervasive that sense is when writing about cinema and how hard it is to escape. The feeling that I am writing about something I love and want to share with people is subsumed beneath the fear of being ‘tested’ on my knowledge and the facts of it all (even though I’m not presenting fact) and what ‘gaps’ might tell people about me. This is sometimes stronger than the feeling that I am just a terrible writer writing a book no one has any interest in ever reading. I wonder if that’s my age, or the social media age, the fact that it’s taken me so long to get to this point or some wretched combination of all three.

The writing of the list certainly helped put the next few months into focus and my sketch of a new plan, once I am back in earnest at the desk, looks ok. I’m excited to work through the final films and get the book into even better shape. Other events in July certainly helped. One was finishing a draft of the fifth chapter on my list, on films about making music. It was a slog time wise, because of so many interruptions, but I got there on the final day of ‘work’ before annual leave. So it felt momentous and a good way to sign off for a bit.

There was also the arrival of some films from the U.S. I took advantage of the Barnes and Noble 50% off Criterion Collection sale and the fact that I have a dear, dear friend in New York (thank you JC!) to post stuff to me that would mean avoiding import tax, to get my hands on some classic films. I mainly wanted them for the extras but also because I love them. I picked up A Hard Day’s Night, Gimme Shelter (a July rewatch), Transes and one I’ve never seen, Murray Lerner’s Festival. I also picked up maybe my favourite ever music doc, Les Blank’s A Poem Is A Naked Person, and a box set of Blank’s work which includes a ton of music, music-centric, or music related works that I can’t wait to get stuck into. Blank is fast becoming one of my favourite filmmakers.

July’s watchlist was heavy hitters galore as I was watching and rewatching for my Milestones chapter so films and filmmakers included The Last Waltz and other Scorsese works (is Rolling Thunder Revue his best music film maybe?), Jonathan Demme, Julien Temple and films about the Beatles, Stones and Bob Dylan. Big. One such film was Demme’s beautiful concert film Heart of Gold, focusing on Neil Young not long after surgery for a brain aneurysm. It’s a warm and soulful film and one I saw on DVD, in New York, on a lazy afternoon before heading home, while staying with my friend John Carlin (the JC who sent posted me some DVDs this month). I was tired, I was all New York-ed out, and John put it on and we loved it. It meant a lot, maybe more, than it would normally had because a couple of years earlier I had written a play called How It Plays Out, that John travelled to Luton to perform in as the lead, and in the play he performed a Neil Young song, Only Love Can Break Your Heart. John Carlin is a brilliant songwriter in his own right. Check out his work here and buy Songs From The Black House, it’s one of the best records ever made, Fact. I love him.

I also read the first book that will feature in my book since I started writing back last year (nearly 12 months ago!), Thomas F. Cohen’s Playing to the Camera: Musicians and Musical Performance in Documentary Cinema. It was invigorating. Not only is it a great book, but it reminded me why I am working on mine. I want to be in dialogue with these other works that exist, reach out to and pull from them and survey the land of ideas that is music documentary and the writing on it. I loved Cohen’s style and confidence too. It gave me strength to be more confident about my own writing. It was also nice to see so much time dedicated to Shirley Clarke’s Ornette: Made in America, a truly magnificent doc I loved writing about.

So over the next few months I shall be reading more and more for the book. I am excited. That trip to the BFI library (where I learned of Cohen’s book), really galvanised me, in ways I’m becoming more aware of as I think more and write less.

Don’t forget, you can track what I’m watching (and maybe try and work out which films I’m referring to above and in the note fragments below) via my Letterboxd list, here.

Don’t forget you can listen in to my book themed playlist here.

Here’s what I was listening to while writing in July:

Finally, a bit of fun. Here are my favourite notes from this month’s viewing sessions:

Demme knows

“I just wanna play well and share the stage with my friends”

“He had a lot of ukeleles in the trunk”

Imagine booing one of the greatest live shows ever by one of, if not the, greatest rock n roll backing bands of all time.

Joan Baez’s Dylan impression is bang on.

“I don’t even wanna get in tune”

People lying around everywhere.

Need a shower after watching this.

Babies, planes and Nick Cave

Bob Marley tats and flags

Coke in the nose

Clapton - boring

Bob looks amazing!

“you booed!”

Keroauc’s grave

“I don’t want this shit to work. I hate it”

Bawdy

Ludicrous outfit Mick

Chilly at the heliport

#book #music films #music #music documentary #film #movies #cinema #documentary.

[rendiing-archived]

but wow while we’re at it, let’s talk about @ofstarkilling?

bc wow, ping is a gift.

first and foremost, any trans iteration of a character instantly has some small piece of my heart. i remember way back when an anon was harassing you about it; but i said then and i maintain now that as a trans man, i am and always have been extraordinarily comfortable with how you portray that experience with ardell. i feel that you do an excellent job with him, and i couldn’t be happier to see it, because anyone who writes a trans version of a character and does it well is a+ in my books. but aside from that, you have built hux into someone who is uniquely your own, and yet still feels in line with canon; it’s amazing how you’ve added bits and pieces here and there, details that deviate, headcanons that might seem to clash with what we see of him, and yet it all falls into place perfectly. i’m honestly just so in awe of that, and of you for managing to pull it off.

i could gush about your writing forever; i think that you have a wonderful style. it’s clear, descriptive, but not so much so that i feel like i’m slogging through something to try to get to the point. everything you write feels like it’s leading to a point, instead of wandering aimlessly. i always kind of drop whatever i’m doing when i see you’ve replied to something, and rush over to read it -- your replies are always a highlight of my day when they come. sometimes we’re both slow as snails to get to things, but i never mind waiting, because your replies are always worth it. you always manage to push the story forward, even when i’m stalling out and getting too caught up on minute, sensory details, as i’m sometimes wont to do. 

and ooc? ooc, you are such a sweetheart, i don’t even know what to say. you’re so incredibly kind; you’re supportive when i’m having doubts about my portrayal, and hilarious. you indulge me so often in all my wild ideas, and you run with anything i throw at you. i can’t express how much that means to me. i love that we just kind of click as writers, and that we can just fling ideas at each other and spend the next hours or days screaming about them, and i love that we just have started tacking on additional chats because there are too many things to say and write all at once. i like that you’re willing to cry with me over ship songs and fanart that fits our threads. it’s still hard to believe that my longest running thread on this blog is with you -- and it’s so intricate and good. even though it’s largely already been plotted out and discussed, i’m not at all bored with it; i’m looking forward to continuing it, and our other threads, and having tons more of interactions in the future. 

ardell and kylo just fit so well together in so many ways, and it’s really interesting to see them interacting and figuring that out for themselves. i love that we can gush about them ooc, and watch them try to navigate all this new territory, while also plotting out new and creative ways to make them suffer, but also ways to let them heal. you’re so much fun to talk to, and i really hope we only become better friends in the future, and that we’re still interacting and suffering over these dumb boys for ages to come. x

#ofstarkilling #( OOC. | straight from the local trash compactor. ) #[can y'all tell i'm emotional tonight?]

[desunk]

12/02/2017 – Ola from the Sierra Nevada!

Hello folks. Hope all is well in your worlds.

It’s been a big gap since the last post, which is usually a sign of how content we are with our day-to-day. We forget to even do the blog with so little in the way of responsibilities apart from the basics (shopping, washing, bog emptying etc). We’re now in one of my most anticipated destinations in Spain, the Sierra Nevada! The drive in was another interesting one, though nowhere near as bad as the run into the Pyrenees when we first got to Spain. Tight bends, narrow roads, huge drops off the side of the road and very steep hills! When we finally pulled into our campsite, just above a lovely little village called Laroles, we were at a dizzying 3900 feet (ish). With the altitude comes the most fantastic view and because no one comes up here this time of year, we got the pick of pitches. We went for the one closest to the edge and pulled up side on so our “patio” is overlooking the valley below. On top of the scenery, the lovely little campsite and the local mountain biking, it’s also much warmer than I’d expected. In the last post, I said I was expecting cold and that no one else could believe we were coming up this far. As it turns out it’s 15 degrees most days and because you’re so high up, the sun feels much warmer. Perfect! We like it so much that instead of the staying 1 week as planned, we’ve now negotiated a good price for the month and are probably staying till the end of February!

So, let’s get down to business. Mountain biking (everyone sighs). The mountain biking is very good but these Spanish boys are sadistic fuckers! They have BTT routes here in the Sierra Nevada, some of which pass right through Laroles. I think I mentioned these before as they had them in the Pyrenees and the Costa Brava. They’re basically cross country routes but are pretty variable. They can have good downhill sections, massive climbs, be very extreme, be very boring and vary from 5 miles to 50. Here at part way up the Sierra Nevada mountain range the climbing is just mental – as you’d expect I guess. On Friday I spent over 2 hours (a good bit of that resting!) riding 10 miles up a hill climbing 3100 feet in total and reaching a highest altitude of 6121 feet. For most people this is misery, as Erin reminded me, but I don’t mind it. I don’t try and break any records when climbing, for me it’s just a means to get fit and get to the good downhill bits. For the local riders, they just seem to want to ride up these ridiculous hills as fast as they can, causing themselves as much pain as possible! They literally get up these hills 2 or 3 times faster than I can and I know it must hurt. I just don’t know how they push themselves on like that!

I read somewhere the other day, that climbing on the bike doesn’t get easier, you just get faster. Same with running I guess. It does get a bit easier I reckon, but once you get half fit you push on harder which makes it hard as nails again. What goes through these guy’s minds when they’re climbing up gravel tracks that make Furry Way in Helston look like a gentle slope, I do not know. For me it was a bit of a slog but good fun. I pushed a few sections where I literally couldn’t keep the front wheel on the ground but rode most of it, then I reaped the rewards of my hard work with some wicked downhill. No falling off and no flat tyres. Just me, my bike, a long gravel track, some trees, some goats and even a bit of snow. Bleddy hansom!

Laroles is a lovely little place. Everything happens at a snail’s pace (apart from the driving!) and I like it! The shop has everything you need but without the choice overload. It’s not the best idea to try and do a full week’s shop in one hit. The secret is to go 2 or 3 times a week as they have different meats and veg in the shop of varying freshness on any given day, but I like that too! We’ve been trying to get to the village markets without much success, as this is where to get your veg. We were about to leave to a market on Sunday last week, but just before we were about to leave the wind got up. Before we knew it, we were packing away everything outside, battening down the hatches and riding out 30 – 40 mph winds! That was an interesting day! Then I headed out to a village on Monday but it was tiny. A few hundred people for a guess so there wasn’t much there. Next attempt was on Thursday and it was much better!

Orgiva is a town just over an hour’s drive to the west of us. It’s famous for the hippy community that resides in the area, so we had to have a look. The drive over was fun because ‘Sally Satnav’ took us on a diversion over the top of a bleddy mountain, but at least the views were good. It’s strange looking down at the sea from 4000 or 5000 feet because the horizon is so much higher up. On a hazy day, it’s hard to tell where the water ends and the sky begins! We pulled into the car park near the market and got the only space left. There were cars everywhere. The market was exactly what we’d hoped for! I left Erin in the car with the dogs and went on the hunt for food as we hadn’t eaten breakfast. I came back with exactly what I was looking for, a rotisserie chicken and portion of chips which is my favourite part of these markets. The chicken is so delicious! After that, we took Bear (and left Charlie because he hates dogs and busy places) and wondered around the market for an hour. It was so much fun. There were; veg stalls, spices, clothes, aromatherapy oils, handmade crafty stuff, sweets, and much much more. We stocked up on veg and got some goodies while soaking up the lovely relaxing atmosphere. It really was relaxing too. The hippies were exactly how hippies should be. Chilled to the core! There was a woman meditating on a car boot lid, hippies sat about chatting (and smoking!), some hippies dancing a tango in the town square to no music and I even got chatting to an English chap from Milton Keynes, who when it came to say goodbye, told me to “enjoy my journey”. Not trip, or travels, but journey! I liked that too! A good day was had by all, even Charlie, who chilled out in the shaded car without Bear pissing him off for an hour! I like to think he sat and read his book as I fancy Charlie as a bit of a book worm.

I also soaked up a little of the Spanish hospitality yesterday while Erin took an afternoon snooze. Some folks that stayed here last weekend from Almeria came back this weekend to collect their van. Like us, they have a manual car but unlike me, the guy can’t tow with a manual car. The hill out of here is pretty steep and instead of just getting the clutch out and powering up the hill, he made the fatal mistake of riding the clutch. There was soon a very clutchy odour and lots of people stood around the car with the bonnet up. Anyway, they came back to get the van this weekend and stopped one night. Before they left yesterday they did a big Paella for another couple and Tino (the campsite manager) and his wife on the communal BBQ. While they were cooking, they sent over their daughter to invite us “to eat paella with us”, which was lovely given we hadn’t even spoke to them before that. I left Erin in the van snoozing with the dogs and headed over to eat their food and even had half a glass of the local red! It was great having a natter with them, talking food and sampling the paella, blood sausage, rabbit and tapas for an hour before announcing my departure. Before I could leave, the wife of the guy who cooked the paella shot off and told me to wait. When she came back, she was carrying two massive Chinese takeaway containers which the husband loaded up with all the remaining paella. He handed both over to me, giving me instructions on how to microwave it for our evening meal! Like I said, Spanish hospitality, it was quite lovely.

Not much else to tell I don’t think. Will add all the pictures from the market, bike rides etc below. We’re here for another couple of weeks probably, depending on how the weather goes. We had a bit of rain yesterday and the forecast is starting to look a little worse. If we head back to the coast and towards Malaga, we’ll be in 20 degrees enjoying the sun every day. It is getting tempting as nice as it is in the mountains.

Thats all folks.

TTFN!!!

PS - Can’t get photos to upload. will try again later

[divinecreation]

When I found out october was gonna have 2 full moons and halloween on a weekend I just KNEW october was gonna give us something good i just didn't think it'd be literally on the first day

#this is about trump testing positive for covid #trump #covid19 #coronavirus #trumphascovid #donald trump #slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

I love seeing how other people interpret characters, and I'll never go out of my way to disagree with someone's headcanons and claim that they're "wrong"

BUT...

I have to draw the line at thinking Mello is cishet you're definitely WRONG

#he's so queer coded at this point if you dont think hes queer im gonna assume ur homophobic AJDKFKFK /hj #Mello #death note mello #death note #mello death note #mihael keehl #slogs (snail blogs) #i feel like i might've made a post like this before but i dont remember lmao

[divinecreation]

hiii its 2 hours late where i am but happy birthday!!! ur blog is very cool and i hope u had a good day 😊

Thank you!🥰

#ask #slogs (snail blogs) #glad u like my blog and also i DID have a good day c: #ps ur blog is cool too

[divinecreation]

Me, immediately upon starting a round of Dead by Daylight:

#am i funny yet #ahdkfklsla no im not #dead by daylight #dbd #what else do i tag this???? #idk #slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

Sending someone an ask off anon is literally the most stressful thing in the world im hnnnggggngngbg

#slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

Near is the one who first kissed Mello. Mello 100% got really butthurt because he wanted to be the one to initiate their first kiss but Near totally stole his thunder.

#just a random headcanon ive been thinking of #death note #near #mello #meronia #melloxnear #ive made two text posts about mello and near and theyre both about kissing #maybe someday ill make a post about mellodramattic but idk #and maybe someday i will make a matt and near post #slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

????? What ?????

#am i being told to buy lin manuel miranda right now what #what #lin manuel miranda #slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

Alright it's April which means it's officially the 5th year anniversary of when I first watched Death Note !

#and then i became completely and utterly obsessed and joined the tumblr fandom #and it changed my fuckin life #its also the 5th year anniversary of when i moved to massachusetts #uh that definitely changed my life more than getting into death note did but ajsjdj #slogs (snail blogs) #i cant believe ive only been a part of the fandom for 5 years it feels like its been at least a whole ass decade

[divinecreation]

Okay listen if you're nonbinary, agender, genderfluid, genderqueer or anything that isn't boy or girl you're fucking hella and your identity is valid and amazing that is all

#I'm sorry I just blocked a bunch of assholes and I'm #angery #happy pride month everybody #lgbt #pride #pride month #nonbinary #agender #genderfluid #genderqueer #slogs (snail blogs)

[divinecreation]

Ya know, I read Artemis Fowl when I was in middle school and now I'm suddenly getting very interested in the series again aaaaAAGGHH

#I'm gonna reread it all lol #that shit was like.. my first fandom even tho I didn't interact with the fandom #artemis fowl #slogs (snail blogs) #if you haven't read that entire series fucking do it

[divinecreation]

Um @me can u stop randomly getting anxious for literally no reason u are sitting on ur bed watching shrek there's nothing to be afraid of

#slogs (snail blogs) #God that fucking tag why

[divinecreation]

An infinite amount of years have been added to my life. I am filled with joy. This is it. I'm immortal now. I am Thriving I will never die.

#these put the literal biggest smile on my face okay like my soul is cleansed my depression is cured I am healthy #and I will live forever #some things add 5 years to my life #others add 10 #BUT THIS #too many to count it's infinite I'm living forever #slogs (snail blogs) #I seriously use that as the tag I