Mixing Memory and Desire

Oh, she missed the bottle on purpose. Didn’t even hesitate. When your boyfriend plans and executes the best date ever, the perfect date for you, you let him have the satisfaction of winning the contest.

The first time I played ME3, I actually caught myself with my hand pressed to my heart during that whole scene (I almost missed an interrupt), because it was so damned perfect and I was totally unspoiled for it. Especially for my Shepard, also a sniper, and very much about good-natured ribbing and contests and competition with Garrus. 

That said, let’s be honest: Garrus knows her (and her superlative sniper skills) well enough to know she could’ve made the shot easily. But he’ll still take the win, if only for bragging rights. ;)

MUSIC

First: I love playlists and fanmixes a lot, so if you want to share yours, I would be thrilled. (The Hunger Games movies have good soundtracks. I think I only have the first one, but I’ve listened to it quite a bit.)

Second: I don’t have many I’ve made myself. I made an 8tracks playlist/inspiration album for A Handful of Dust (it’s so depressing, sorry) over here. I’m slowly collecting songs for a Cullen playlist, but I don’t know if that’ll ever see the light of day. (Tom McRae’s Out of the Walls is a total angsty-scary-sad-messed-up Cullen song, and I think the first I ever added to the collection that may never be. I've had it in my back pocket for years.)

Third: the incomparable janiemcpants made a double From the Ashes fanmix, and also one for Life Signs, and both are amazing, if you want soundtracks while reading those. cherith made me a Hawke/Sebastian playlist for a giveaway once, and I still love it to pieces. If you want, you can poke around my 8tracks page. It’s not at all comprehensive, but I’ve liked a handful of great ME/DA playlists, and the (few; I need to add more) people I’m following all make gorgeous stuff. You can also poke around my fanmix tag here on tumblr?

Finally: when I’m writing, I tend to listen to things without words—or without words I can understand—so I don’t get distracted. I do ALWAYS listen to music, though. I’ve listened to the ME soundtracks a lot. I really love the DA:I soundtrack. Other favorites: The Fountain (Clint Mansell) may be my all-time favorite soundtrack to write to, anything by Olafur Arnalds, Sigur Ros (especially the brackets ( ) album), soundtracks from The Road and The Assassination of Jesse James (Nick Cave and Warren Ellis), a lot of Lisa Gerrard (I listened to her song Redemption ON REPEAT the whole time I was writing Cold Skies, Keen Perils), Zack Hemsey’s The Way (especially the more instrumental tracks), all Ramin Djahwadi’s Game of Thrones soundtracks, some Two Steps from Hell, some Yann Tiersen, some Einaudi, some Philip Glass (The Hours and Koyaanisqatsi soundtracks stand out), a whole bunch of pretty random classical (I like a lot of Tchaikovsky, Chopin’s Nocturnes, the Goldberg Variations). I feel like I’m barely scratching the surface here, really. I tend to favor things that are easy on brass and heavy on strings or piano, though I do like well-incorporated percussion.

For inspiration, I DO listen to things with lyrics, but God, we’d be here all day if I started listing artists. I like a lot of mellow indie/folk/singer-songwriter/people-with-their-pianos stuff; occasionally I’ll vacation over in rock or pop, but not as often.

I just REALLY love music. Turning music on is the first thing I do in the morning, and often turning it off happens just as I’m about to turn in for the night.