Self-Promotion

I'm kinda terrible at it. I do have a few things that I'm doing with my creative life. I feel kind of good about the things I'm doing. I realize that the name Mixtress Rae is in like a LOT of places (and it's all ME!), but I don't really tell people about it. I am actually starting to get a few followers in some of these places.

Today is a day in which the output of words I type feels juvenile, like the words I typed years ago. It's a regression day, but I still need to get my words in for April's CampNaNoWriMo, so I type on. I need to get about 1500 words a day the last three days of the month to hit my goal. That's a LOT, if you want quality...but wait, I don't do QUALITY work. Pfffft.

I'm going to use this opportunity of having no desire to think about the damn TV shows, just for one day, to get some words in promoting myself. Without further adieu/word dribble, I give you...the places on the internet that MixtressRae hath infiltrated:

Instagram: instagram.com/mixtressrae
     {Did you even know Instagram has a website now?!}

Facebook: facebook.com/mixtressrae
     {Ok, a small informational statement on Facebook. I kind of hate it. I mean, I love how useful it is and that everyone is accessible and everything, but there's just something icky about EVERYONE being at the same site all the time. I feel creepy using it sometimes. I'm a child of the '90s! I want to hide behind my username in vampire chat rooms, gawwwd! Ok, that's really just too much information. What I really mean to say is that for some strange reason Facebook repulses me so I don't use it that much. I deleted it from my phone a couple of weeks ago. I do still have the messenger app, however, so if you ever need me to see something on Facebook, MSG it to me and I'll get it.}

Tumblr: mixtressrae.tumblr.com
     {Tumblr is the place that I spend most of my online-time. I don't post a lot of original content here, but I reblog cute gifs of kittens and feminist rants a lot.}

YouTube: youtube.com/user/mixtressrae/videos
     {This is where I'm posting my ASMR videos. I've made a deal with myself that if I don't have 25 subscribers a few days after posting my tenth video, I'll stop. I've got three more videos to shoot and only have 19 subscribers. If you please, check out my channel and subscribe if you like it. Thanks!}

Last.fm: last.fm/user/mixtressrae
     {This is the place where you can see ALL my music stats, almost everything I've listened to in the last 4 years! What, that doesn't sound exciting to you? Why not? I wanna know what YOU listen to! Seriously, if you have a lastFM, tell me!}

I also have a zine called Chickweed. You can submit entries for the next issue until about May 15th via mixtressrae@yahoo.com. I don't yet have a theme...I think the next one will be a lot of ranting and vadge-talk, as per the usual. The next issue will be out June 1st! Yeayyyyy! If you want to give me money for the production of my zine, there's a PayPal donate button to the right somewhere.

Ok, self-promotion over!

top five playlists/radio stations on the internet.

I enjoy calling myself a writer, laughable as that assertion seems on any given day in which I binge-watch The Office, read trashy horror novels, or do anything but put pen to paper or fingers to keys. When I finally get beyond the distractions, in order to really knuckle down on a writing sesh, I need music, naturally. 

These are the top five playlists/internet radio stations I listen to while working:

Drone Zone --

somaFM’s description: Served best chilled, safe with most medications. Atmospheric textures with minimal beats.

my recommended usage: I’ve mentioned this station before. It is heaven if you like very minimal ambience in your background work music. You could also take a bath while listening, or fall asleep, not at the same time! Emphasis on the word minimal. 

find it: somafm.com/dronezone 

-or-

find the soma fm app on your smahhht phone

Psybient --

Songza’s description: Also referred to as psychill, psybient is a genre of electronic music heavily influenced by world music and psychedelic sounds. Wherever you are, these songs will take you somewhere else.

my recommended usage: This playlist reminds me of the cheesy psychedelic weirdness my dad used to make on his synthesizers. It provides a general background hum of electronic soundscapes. Good for scifi/fantasy writing or just zoning out, man.

find it: songza.com/listen/psybient-songza 

-or-

seriously you guys, I have told you about Songza multiple times now. You NEED this app if you don’t already have it. Don’t argue with me. You will love it more than all your other music apps. You don’t have to be obsessed with electronic music like me. It has every genre, it’s free, and the ads are visual instead of aural. Songza is perfection. Don’t make me tell you again.

“no one receiving” --

This is my personal Pandora station based on Brian Eno’s song of the same name.

my recommended usage: Brian Eno is like THE pioneer of ambient electronic music. If you require a background hum that’s a little less drone than “Drone Zone”, look no further than basing your own Pandora station on this or any of your favorite ambient tunes.

find it: DIY or listen to my specifics here: no one receiving.

Witchy Thug Grrrl Pop --

Songza’s description: Spooky female vocals over southern-rap-influenced electronic music distinguish this playlist, with plenty of noise-pop, chiptune, and hip hop mixed in for good measure. It’s purple lipstick music to read Jezebel to.

my recommended usage: I’ve been listening to this playlist a lot while writing for Camp NaNoWriMo (July is a National Novel Writing Month and I’m getting my word count up on my novel--shut up.). It can get a bit distracting, because the beats are intense and scary at times, but that’s the sort of bone-jangle I like accompanying my creativity. Not for the faint of heart, but if you like Santigold mixing with your Grimes and Crystal Castles, you can handle it.

find it: songza.com/listen/witchy-thug-grrrl-pop-songza 

-or-

*ahem* that app you were supposed to download like five minutes (or months) ago. Oh, and if you don’t know what Jezebel is, it’s this rawkin’ feminist blog. Check that out too.

Slow Motion Disco --

Songza’s description: Inspired by pioneering DJs, leftfield disco, and the spacier side of synth-driven music, modern-day disco producers slow down the BPMs and explore hypnotic, psychedelic moods that move both the mind and the body.

my recommended usage: I use this playlist during my celebratory struts around the neighborhood with my husky and/or shepherd after I’ve successfully written something for a specified block of time. The vibe has the perfect walking rhythm to it in the way that “Stayin’ Alive” does, but the music is nothing like that. It’s spacier and more inspired. The songs are long without being boring, allowing you to get lost in a sweaty summer walkabout, after your work is done, of course.

find it: songza.com/listen/slow-motion-disco

-or-

say it with me: get the damn app and experience a heightened-to-the-divine music app love. 

tell me how much you love Songza here: mixtressrae@yahoo.com

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tough Love.

episode 97.
airdate: 1 May 2001.

Buffy goes to tell a professor she has to drop his class, all her classes, actually. He understands.

Ben is in trouble at work, he's fired actually, because he doesn't show up very often, hasn't in two weeks in fact. Glory is taking over for longer periods of time, I guess...getting stronger.

Glory is taking a bath while blindfolded minions serve her Mimosas and chocolates and describe everything they saw when they spied on Buffy and her friends/family. Buffy is at a meeting with Dawn's principal. Apparently she hasn't been going to school. Buffy is asking Giles what to do, suggests Giles be the disciplinarian for Dawn. Giles says she needs to step up and deal, be the grown-up. Buffy is being all super-serious now.

Glory thinks she knows who the Key is now. She's going to "collect" her now. Tara and Willow have an argument, their first...about magic. Tara says she's "frightened" by how proficient Willow is getting with magic. Willow is overly sensitive, because she really can't be trusted entirely with the magic stuff. Willow storms out. Buffy and Dawn are fighting too. Buffy reveals to Dawn that Social Services will take her away if it doesn't work out with Buffy being "legal guardian". Buffy is terrible at folding towels. It really may not work out (I'm kidding of course--folding towels is really not important, so much...how, anyway. It is important that you do it.).

Glory shows up at the fair and sits next to Tara. One of the minions shows at the magic shop and Giles threatens to tie him up and he squeals, revealing that Glory has gone to get the Key. Mentions she's a "witch". Willow goes to find Tara. Glory breaks Tara's hand. She tastes Tara's hand-blood and realizes she's not the Key. Now she wants Tara to tell her who the Key really is. Threatens to eat her brain if she doesn't tell. Tara is saying nothing and Glory is getting all crazy. Just as Willow is running to her, Glory eats her brain and disappears. Tara's crazy now. Willow is sad and blames herself for not being there. They take her to the hospital to fix her hand. The doc says she has to spend the night in the psych ward. Buffy gets to the hospital last because she dropped Dawn off with Spike.

*Pausing for a sec. Man, this writing for 6 hours a day thing is really sucking the brains outta ME, that's for sure. Camp NaNoWriMo is harrrrrrrd. And this is only the third episode. I'm supposed to do one more. And my fingers hurt from all the typing. And I haven't left the house all day and barely left yesterday. I'm sucked into Buffy writing world. Ok, bitching over. I hear NaNoWriMo is hardest at the beginning of week 2, right?

Dawn is feeling hopeless. Blames herself for what happened to Tara. She doesn't even know what she is. Blames herself for how injured Spike is too. She must be something "so horrible to cause so much pain and evil". Spike says he knows evil and she isn't it.

Xander and Buffy try to calm Willow. Willow tries to leave to take on Glory. Buffy tries to stop her. Talk her down. Willow pretends to be dissuaded. Buffy is fooled and leaves Willow alone. Willow goes to the "off limits" section of the magic shop. She finds a book called "Darkest Magick". Glory is gloating when Willow arrives. Her eyes are black and she'd gliding through the air. "I owe you PAIN." Buffy is back at Spike's comforting her. She tells Dawn she calmed Willow down after she wanted to go all "paybacky on Glory". Spike's like, "and you believed her? Riiiiiight." Buffy goes to Glory's. Willow is kicking Glory's ass a little, but not enough. Buffy gets there just in time. Fighting. They get away.

Buffy, Willow, Dawn, and Tara are hiding out at Tara's. Willow is going to take care of her, indefinitely. Glory shows up. Tara calls Dawn "pure green energy"...then, credits.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Restless.

episode 78.
airdate: 23 May 2000.

In the month of April I will be FINISHING this Buffy project. I'm doing April's Camp NaNoWriMo and that's my goal. So there's my public announcement so that I will stick to it, damnit! Ok, here we go with the last episode of season 4 so that I can watch/blog seasons 5, 6, AND 7 in the next 30 days. Woo!

Riley is going away for the episode and they're all at Joyce's house. They're all cuddling in to watch videos and they fall asleep before the FBI warning is over.

We enter Willow's dreams. Tara is there and Willow is painting a spell on her back. Tara is telling her she doesn't know everything about her and that "they'll find out" about Willow. Willow looks out the window at a desert, then suddenly she's in school and Oz and Xander are there. They might be in the high school. Harmony is suddenly there and Willow is about to star in a play. Joss really makes it feel like a dream. Nothing makes sense and the transition between settings is exactly how it is in dreams (like walking into a completely different world like walking into another room or just appearing elsewhere with no transition whatsoever). The threads that hold everyone's dreams together are an elusive yet pursuing tribal chick and a weird dude that's obsessed with cheese. Suddenly Willow is in the outfit she was wearing in episode one after Buffy rips off her "costume" (the way she dresses now). The pursuing tribal chick catches up to her and suffocates her.

Now Xander's dream shows him watching "Apocalypse Now" with everyone. Joyce attempts to seduce him. Xander's dream reminds me the most of my dreams because when he opens the door of Joyce's bathroom he ends up in his basement and then he's in a playground with Giles and Spike swinging on a set. Anya finds she can steer by "gesturing emphatically" in the ice cream truck. I think about that all the time. Xander keeps ending up back in the basement. Then he ends up in the school and Giles tries to tell him how to solve the situation, but everyone starts talking in French...bad dubbed French. Then he's in "Apocalypse Now". Principal Snyder is there. Even in their dreams though, they're all connected and they're figuring out how to fight it as the "creature" pursues them in each of their dreams. Perhaps this is because they're still connected via the conjoining spell they used to defeat Adam. In the end of Xander's dream his dad is yelling at him from upstairs. "That's not the way out." The tribal chick rips out his heart.

Now we're in Giles' dream. Olivia is with he and Buffy in a carnival and Buffy is acting like a 5-yr old. Spike is posing for a photo shoot in his crypt. Olivia is pregnant and crying. Everyone is doing research in the Bronze. The dreams are sequential, so Willow and Xander are still dying: "sucking chest wound here". Everyone is looking to Giles for help, so he sings about it. So cute. He does figure it out, too, mostly. "I know who you are and I can defeat you..." She still scalps him as he says, "you never had a Watcher." So we know she was a Slayer.

And she's killing them in the ways they were contributing to the conjoining spell. Willow was Spirit, so that's why she's being suffocated. Xander is Heart, and now he doesn't have one. And Giles is brain, but she cut it out. She's taking away the things they brought to the union.

Now for Buffy's dream. She's in her childhood bedroom with Tara staring at her unmade bed. "Didn't Faith and I just make this bed?" Tara says, "You think you know what's to come. What you are. You haven't even begun." after showing her the "Manus" tarot card. She is Hands and Feet in the spell. Suddenly the bed is made. Buffy knows she needs to find them. As she leaves the room Tara says, "Be back before Dawn." Joyce is living in the walls of the school. This reminds me of a dream I have had too. She sees Riley and he's talking about world domination ("filing things, giving things names") with Adam as a human. Buffy washes her face with clay. She also had clay on her face in Giles' dream. Riley keeps calling her a "killer". Buffy is in the desert and the Israeli music is really peaceful and pretty. Tara speaks for the primal Slayer. The First Slayer. She tells her she's supposed to be alone. I'm not sure if the First Slayer is trying to kill Buffy necessarily, or just her friends...oh, wait, now she's stabbing her. Buffy tells her she's ignoring her until she goes away, then they all wake up. How cool is that?

They all talk about what happened: "the spirit of the first Slayer tried to kill us all in our dreams". Joyce says, "Oh, you guys want hot chocolate?"

COMMENTARY: I'm going to watch the commentary now because that is a DAMN good episode.

Willow's dream: Turns out what Willow was writing on Tara's back was a love poem by Sappho. When Willow finds Tara in between the red curtains that's a vaginal reference. Totally should have gotten that!

Xander's dream: All roads lead to his basement because of the sense of failure/something dangerous there. Joss is talking about the images having resonance by themselves. That is the coolest part of this episode. There's so much space with the music and the long shots/images. Xander talking about being a conquistador/comfortador...Joss talks about this being because Xander needs comfort/love in a way that he never got growing up. He also talks about when everyone is speaking French this is because he feels stuck while everyone else is moving on with their lives. Whoa. That's cool. Didn't get that either. I'm so slow.

Giles' dream: Giles can't decide if he wants to have his own life or be a mentor. Does he want to be a rock star or a Watcher?

Buffy's dream: Tara is her spirit guide. Riley can't handle when Buffy becomes primal (when she puts the mud on her face). Buffy defies the notion of climax and defies the notion of the tragic tale of the Slayer. When you stop taking a dream seriously, you wake up.