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cadybear420 · 5 days

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Cadybear's MC Wardrobes: Alan Parke, OG HSS Book 2. Featuring some edits by me!

How this series goes: With each book, for a MC I'm invested in, I'll assess each of their in-game outfits. How much do I like or dislike the outfit? Is this something that suits my MC's style, or does it make me go "My MC would NOT wear/own this"? And for the outfits that my MC would not wear or own, how would I alter or replace them? I'm not going to use screenshots from the actual game because I can't be arsed. Also I want to use the different sprite expressions to express how my MC would feel about each outfit.

I like to think this is a good opportunity to elaborate on my MCs' dress styles, and show off some edits :D

Now let's see how well the Book 2 outfits does justice to Alan!

Directory for the other parts will be included in the reblogs after I've completed the posts for all books!

Ch 1: "Hipster Handsome", "Winter Wonderland", and "Snow Day" Starter Outfits

These outfits are pretty neat. I think Alan would like the scarf and jacket from hipster handsome and the sweater in the winter wonderland one. But that's about it. Even then, they're not quite his style.

Verdict: Only the first two outfits are in Alan's wardrobe, and only partly. Alter by combining some pieces and adding a skirt.

Here's something more in his style. Weather appropriate, but still stylish.

Ch 1: "Live From Berry High" Outfit for Tiger News

It's nice, but he'd prefer the f!MC's version. This looks more like the m!version of the premium casual "Make A Statement" outfit from f!MC's wardrobe. Hence, something Evie would wear as a semiformal/date night thing (reminder to self: edit this outfit onto Evie).

Verdict: Alan would not wear this. Replace entirely.

Here's what he'd prefer.

BONUS ROUND: Ch 2: Basketball Uniform

Doesn't look bad on him, but not really his style either.

Verdict: Technically not in Alan's wardrobe because you have to return uniforms, but he wouldn't care for it either way.

Ch 3: "OMB Tigers" for Winter Carnival

Solid look, but he deserves to have a little "B" necklace like the f!MC version has.

Verdict: Part of Alan's wardrobe, but needs the addition of an extra piece. Alter by adding necklace. And replacing pants with skirt.

Here's the look in Alan's style.

Ch 7: "Evening Jade" for Maria's birthday party

This actually looks really nice on him! The tie goes with his hair. But it isn't really his preferred style.

Verdict: Alan would not own this. Replace entirely.

Obviously, I'm gonna give him a dress. I wanna keep it just nice enough for the restaurant, but still have a bit of a casual feel to it and not overly flashy, and somewhat maintain the aesthetic of the original. As much as he loves to grab people's attention with his dress style and make things all about him, he knows better than to upstage the birthday girl. Especially since he likes the birthday girl. I already made him lean into self-centered jerk in Book 2's storyline, no need to top that by having him straight up upstage the birthday gir...

...oh fuck it. His logic is that he should wear something extra nice to celebrate the special day of a girl he likes. And also that she gets some good eyecandy on her birthday. I don't think Maria would mind. Classic Alan Parke.

And I do still plan to make new outfits for the other characters for this event. Stay tuned.

Ch 11: "Clean Sweep" Janitor Disguise

Not his usual style, but he rocks the look, ngl. It's worth disguising himself.

Verdict: Alan would wear as a disguise, but he would not own this item (and I'm not sure if he'd be allowed to anyways). Keep it as is.

Ch 14: "Saturday Night" and "Forever Young" Premium Outfit for Payton's Winter Party

Ohhhhhh my god these have got to be the PLAINEST outfits in the whole game. They make the pool party outfit look like a met gala fashion show outfit. Legit the f!MC options are a shimmery gold sequin top and a bright pink tight top with a short pattern skirt, and then the m!MC outfits are THIS poopoo-colored shit!?!?!

I'm having a hard time deciding which is blander. The button-up on the first one kind of looks like snow falling in the night sky which is a bit of a nice touch, and I'd also say the blazer at least looks appropriate for the party setting but DID IT HAVE TO BE BROWN???? Meanwhile, the second one has a much better color scheme, but it's so plain and casual??? The f!MC's pink tank top and skirt outfit could also be technically considered casual, but it at least had a distinct style and some eyecatching design that I can actually buy the other characters fawning over them. I can not buy that with either of these.

Verdict: Alan would NOT own either of these. Replace entirely.

Here's the outfit that Alan WOULD wear, from the f!MC's options again.

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perpetuallylate1890 · 6 months

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Crisis of the Mind

As Ford slipped into his mindscape, he immediately realized something was wrong. Black tendrils threaded through the holographic screens and floating books. A sickly gray haze had overtaken the usual stars and galaxies. Looking at it for too long made him nauseous. If it weren’t for the pervasive sense of dread, the changes would’ve been fascinating.

Ford licked his dry lips and called out. “Bill, are you there?” No answer, but that wasn’t surprising. His muse was fickle, and often left days or even weeks between each visit. Sometimes, being Bill’s protégé felt like trying to hold water in his cupped hands.

Ford made his way to the front portion of his mindscape, where a chess board rested between two armchairs. Pulsing black growths crawled over the furniture. There was no sign of his triangular muse. Briefly, Ford wondered if Bill was playing a prank on him. If he was, Stanford couldn’t discern the punchline.

“Bill?” he chanced aloud. Only a ringing silence.Now this was a real enigma. Ford frowned, rubbing his chin. Gravity Falls had its fair share of supernatural oddities, though few of them possessed the ability to alter mindscapes. Ford considered the Dream Hipster, but as this dream was decidedly lacking in subpar puns, he highly doubted the specter’s involvement. This must be something new.

Ford grasped a nearby journal and tugged it from the vines with a snap. Writing always helped him to gather his thoughts. He jotted down his observations: mysterious tendrils, numbing fog, an inescapable feeling of doom. Though it was just a dream, his pulse quickened and his palms grew clammy. Well, nothing a little investigation couldn’t fix.

Ford mustered his courage and set out into the fog. It swirled around him, dulling his senses. His footsteps had a strange echoing quality. Every sound seemed to reverberate unnaturally.

Soon, he entered the deeper part of his mindscape. Bookshelves loomed on either side of him, shrouded in mist. Soft voices reached out to him. They sounded familiar, but were indistinguishable from a low hum that rose from the fog. Clutching his journal to his chest, Ford attempted to dismiss the sounds as the product of an overactive mind, though with every step he grew less sure.

He had entirely ruled out Bill as the culprit: his muse lacked the patience to let a joke run this long. The farther he walked the denser and more tangled the tendrils grew. He stepped over them like venomous serpents.

Stopping, he attempted to trace a growth back to its source. It wound through the bookstacks before disappearing off into the mist. How peculiar. Ford adjusted his glasses and continued on. Now, the sounds began to increase in volume. He distinctly heard his ma and pa engaged in a verbal clash, followed by the nasal drawl of Cathy Crenshaw. Six-fingered freak! Grimacing, he attempted to move past the unpleasant memory, but was stilled when he heard the familiar crunch of a toffee peanut bag. His heart plummeted.

That sound was a symbol of failure, of sabotage, of dreams grinding to a halt. Ford couldn’t stop the bitterness from welling up. A decade later, and he felt the betrayal like it had happened yesterday.

Stanford gripped the journal with white knuckles, clenching his teeth, and soldiered on. No use dwelling on the past. He had a muse who believed in him, who truly saw what he had to offer. Bill looked past his surface-level deficiencies and saw his potential for greatness. Stanford Pines, the man who changed the world. Bill had said it himself, and when had he ever been wrong?

Still, the doubt was eating him alive. What if he wasn’t enough? What if, in the end, he failed?

Suddenly, the voices doubled in strength. Ford stumbled under the onslaught of doubt. You were always just a freak! sneered the voices of his former bullies. I’m not impressed, commented his father. And worst of all, his own defeated voice, saying, I knew Bill was too good to be true.

Ford dropped the journal, flooded by a surge of inadequacy. His bullies were right, his father was right. How could someone like him deserve someone like Bill? Only a moment of doubt, and already he was losing resolve. Utterly shameful.

A chasm opened at his feet, its edges writhing with noxious tendrils. The voices reached a fever pitch until he couldn’t remember a time without them. Ford sank to his knees. He was outcast, unremarkable save for the extra fingers that marked him as other. Once Bill saw that, he’d abandon Ford and move onto someone more special, more deserving.

His gaze fell on the yawning abyss. Its call was a gravity he couldn’t escape. Ford climbed to his feet and stared down the gaping maw. It’d be simpler to give in. He swayed on his feet, dizzy, before something shiny caught his eye. The journal he’d dropped, once dull and unassuming, now bore a golden six-fingered hand.

He stooped to pick it up, matching his hand to the one on the cover. The journals, the portal were his life’s work. How could he ever think to throw them away? He dusted off the cover and stared at his reflection in the gold. Blue eyes, uncertain and afraid, peered back at him. He schooled his features into a semblance of heroism.

It didn’t matter if he was misfit or alien. He’d seize his destiny by the horns and prove he was worthy. With a shouting cry he clutched the journal tight and leapt into the hole, to follow the tendrils to their source and obliterate them.

Stanford Pines did not shy away from greatness.

_________________________________________

“So then you leapt into the giant hole?” Bill Cipher, reclined on a plush armchair, stirred sugar into his teacup. When he looked up, his slitted eye gleamed with approval. “Attaboy, Fordsy! I like your style!”

Ford flushed under the praise. He rubbed his neck self-consciously. “Well, it seemed like the right thing to do. I certainly feel better.” He frowned. “Although I never did figure out what caused it.”

Thoughtful, Bill sipped at his tea. “I have an idea,” he said finally.

“What is it?” asked Ford. “A spirit? An ancient curse? Some kind of emotion-sucking vampire?”

“Woah-hoh, hold your horses,” Bill said. “Nothing that exciting. What you experienced was just a stress dream.”

“Oh.”

Bill laughed at Ford’s disappointed expression. “What, you don’t appreciate the inner workings of your own mind? Geez, IQ, and here I thought you were smart.” He laughed again as Ford opened his mouth to defend his intelligence. “Kidding, I’m kidding!”

Mollified, Ford took a moment to process. “So all that was just… me?”

“Yup.” Bill reached out to ruffle the scientist’s hair. “When you’ve got a mind as brilliant as yours, it doesn’t take much to set it off. One tiny doubt spirals into another, and before you know it, boom!” He waved his hands in the air. “Identity crisis.”

“Identity crisis,” repeated Ford.

“It’s the little things that get you.” Bill poured Stanford a cup of tea and handed it over. “So, what kinds of things were ya stressing about?”

“Some unpleasant memories,” Ford said dismissively. “Family squabbles and the like.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Of course, Bill had seen right through him. Unable to meet his muse’s searching eye, Ford stared into his teacup. “The voices mentioned you,” he admitted.

“And?”

Ford swirled his tea. “I suppose I was worried I’m not… good enough for you. That there’s someone out there more deserving of your guidance.” There, he’d said it. He squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting Bill to laugh it off. Instead, he felt a tiny hand under his chin.

“Hey, Fordsy, look at me.”

He did so. Bill was hovering directly in front of his nose, his slit pupil burning into Ford’s. Stanford froze, transfixed.

“Listen up,” Bill said, and squished Ford’s face in his hands. “I need to drill this through your thick skull. You are worthy. You’re one of the greatest minds in existence. Just stick with me, and you’ll change the world.” He paused. “No, scratch that. You’ll change the multiverse.”

His muse’s words were a balm to Stanford’s anxieties. He felt the tension leave his body, the tendrils releasing their hold. Confronting his doubts had helped, but having Bill’s full attention, receiving his validation, was something else entirely. Ford released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

Bill gave him a little shake. “Better?” he asked.

“Better,” Ford replied, and meant it.

“Good.” Bill released him and floated over to his armchair. “Now, how ‘bout a game of chess?”

With a click of his fingers, he summoned the pieces and made the first move. Ford leaned forward, settling into the rhythm of the game. Everything would be alright. He just knew it.

(Spoiler: it wasn't)

#stanford pines #bill cipher #gravity falls #fanfiction #writing

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kimbapisnotsushi · 2 years

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Hello, here to help you through the midterms! I would like to hear about Tsukki if you haven't shared hcs for him a thousand times already and/or Fukunaga :)

my babies!!! i'd be more than happy to, let's get it :))

tsukishima:

avid romance defender. he may be kind of mean when it comes to rejecting confessions and girls and doesn't totally get why he's so popular for it but as a bookworm he's very aware of the issues that the genre in literature (and across other mediums as well) faces and WILL have a whole rant locked and loaded if you ask him

thinks strawberry shortcake needs to stay in its purest form to be any good and absolutely will not accept any variations like "white chocolate strawberry shortcake" or "raspberry strawberry shortcake" or anything that alters plain ol' strawberry shortcake

nerdy enough that he has a map tacked up in his room with pins in all the places he wants to visit someday

does not know how to use emojis or kaomojis or even just the simple :) at all and if anyone gets a message from him with one they can safely assume his phone was stolen by yamaguchi, hinata, noya, or suga

everyone is really surprised when they find out that he and lev actually text quite a lot and tsukki is like "look if i don't help him with hw he is NOT going to pass first year"

during tokyo training camp he tries to sneak into the high school's library LMAAAAO

has the most pretentious-ass music taste you will ever find but DOES like a handful of mainstream pop songs

(personally i think he's a yorushika fan but that's just me)

likes getting hw done at cute coffeeshops/cafes especially when his room feels really overwhelming

fukunaga:

once told tora very seriously that he knew a great trick for freaking people out and then proceeded to whip out a mandarin from seemingly nowhere and bit into the whole thing like an apple and tora's resulting reaction was what made fukunaga think about getting into comedy

he did it to lev too except he used a banana and lev's been scared of him ever since

knows, like, every single classic-52-deck card game in existence for some reason

do NOT play poker with him he has an excellent resting face you WILL lose

also really good at sleight-of-hand and simple magic tricks

probably has the most knowledge/experience in non-japanese cuisines let's be real

also has a bucket hat collection that ranges from "cool and stylish" to "walking shitpost"

he's got one with cat ears attached to the top that he's very fond of

uses the team as trial-and-error for his recipes and once accidentally gave them all food poisoning

(nobody blamed him ofc but he felt really bad and made them all cupcakes after)

likes going to hipster artsy events like open mic nights at coffee shops and bookstores and free gallery viewings and band battles and whatever

has to resist the urge to pat inuoka's and lev's heads like a dog sometimes

#I LOVED THESE THANK YOU SO MUCH #tsukishima kei #fukunaga shouhei #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu hcs #sou says stuff #sou answers

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brostateexam · 5 months

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"You’re coming to all this at a funny time,” my colleague said, as we crossed the road to meet the people from EMI. It was December 2007 and the label took our music magazine out every year. “This’ll be the last Christmas lunch for a start.” It was. Streaming was the future, and EMI had been taken over by venture capitalists. Records, as we knew them, were apparently doomed.

In the music industry there was an obsession – and it really was an obsession – with authenticity, and a fetishisation of the musical past. A string of mouthy female artists were kick-starting a Sixties soul revival in the UK: Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black was released the same year Spotify was founded, in 2006. In America, Jack White, the first hipster rock star, fashioned guitars from blocks of wood and set up his own one-man vinyl plant. Every piece in the music press seemed to claim that X or Y was here to save recorded music. We couldn’t imagine the industry would adapt; that Walthamstow’s Adele would be an LA megastar in 2024, and that Beyoncé, then experimenting with her protective carapace “Sasha Fierce”, would be one of the most powerful women on Earth.

My first commission for the magazine was a kind of think piece about how far Amy Winehouse’s human experiment would go. Where would it lead her, this fascinating ability to inhabit her songs? Winehouse had no pop alter ego. In one sense her whole look was a performance but it fitted as a permanent skin, inked and scratched, more closely burned on with each tattoo. You imagined she slept in it; she certainly wore it to the corner shop. I’ll never forget the pap shot of her dressed for the part, looking at the tabloid covers to see what had been said about her that week.

#long reads

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thescoobyscholar · 10 months

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The History of Zoinks (Essay)

Includes an etymological and cultural analysis of the usage of "jeepers," "jinkies," and "zoinks." Another post will include the follow-up study.

If you grew up watching Scooby-Doo, it may be easy to assume that groovy green tees, ascots, and vans painted with flowers were all standard 60s fare. However, recall that these teens were not written by teens; when the first episode aired, character designer Iwao Takamoto was 41, main writer Bill Lutz was 47, and creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were 36 and 31, respectively. Were they already out of touch? As put by Paul Dini, writer on Scooby-Doo! Abracadabra-Doo: “When you look at those characters, they are characters frozen in time. They’re not really what hippies or hipsters or cool kids were like. They’re what 50-year olds thought cool kids were like” (“Scooby Doo! The Whole World Loves You”).

The most iconic quantifiers of how close these characters were to the “cool kids” is their catchphrases: “jeepers,” “jinkies,” and “zoinks!” When we hear the cartoon’s catchphrases, which claim to characterize this era, we must ask: Did people really say these things? Even though these terms are almost exclusively associated with the franchise today, these words were not born for marketing. The writers were pulling from memories, trends, and histories which, if we trace backwards, may glean some evidence as to their cultural accuracy.

Daphne’s classic “jeepers” is said to have been first penned in 1928 by cartoonist Billy DeBeck, whose popular Barney Google strips coined similar terms as “heebie-jeebies” and “holy moly” (Chakraborty and Dosad 117). The true origin of the word is likely several decades earlier, as Google’s catchphrase “Horsefeathers!” was already coming out of fashion among the construction workers that used it when DeBeck revived it in his parody of Appalachian colloquialisms (Funk and Funk ix-x). At the time DeBeck picked up “jeepers,” it was used as a euphemism for “Jesus!” (Harper, “Etymology of jeepers”).

However, the Scooby-Doo writers were more likely to be familiar with Al Donahue’s song “Jeepers Creepers” (as in, “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?”). The song jumped high enough in America’s popular music charts in 1939 that it was covered by Louis Armstrong, Larry Clinton, and later Frank Sinatra (Whitburn 533). As an alteration of “Jesus Christ,” the flexible phrase was perfect for bouncy love ballads (“Oh, those weepers, how they hypnotize!”) and as a horror movie motif in Jeepers Creepers. The fact that the film was released in 2001 speaks to the staying power of “jeepers.”

As for Velma’s catchphrase, “jinkies,” it may be a variation of a number of old Scots terms dating around the 18th-19th century, so you may as well pick your favorite: a synonym for “jauntily” (as “jink,” to dodge or flee; nowadays “to juke” may be applicable), a nonsense word in nursery rhymes (e.g., “Eetum, peetum, penny pie / Cock a lory, jinky jye”), or a child’s nightgown (Dictionary of the Scots Language); a type of knitted fingerless glove (see Kate Davies Designs); or yet, as a derivation of “high jinks,” a drinking game that dates back to at least the 17th century (Harper, “Etymology of jinkies”).

The term was first recorded as exclamation “By jinkies!” in the newspaper strip “Ella Cinders” in 1936. The first recorded use of the term by a human (assuming comic characters can’t mail in letters to the local paper) was in a 1938 edition of the Northern-Courier in the sports section. Ray writes: “By jinkies, on my next pass day I will surely stop and see that 178 foot wheelbase, fire truck. If I can’t make it in one day maybe I can get an extension. Some truck.” (How many feet is the Mystery Machine’s wheelbase, I wonder…?) Again, “jinkies” is preceded by “by,” which Velma, as we all know, would choose to omit. By Scooby’s birthday, the term was popular among college students and “overly earnest” speakers (Iseli), fitting for the youngest of the gang who is always piping up with a clue to prove her intellectual merit.

Unlike “jeepers” and “jinkies,” which have decent pedigrees preceding Scooby-Doo, neither “zoinks” nor “zoink” directly appear in any written work before 1969, although they have a number of distant cousins. The closest approximation comes from television: a famous bit in 1958’s “Robin Hood Daffy” where Daffy swings from tree to tree, calling, “Zoiks, and away!” with each jump, only to crash face-first into a tree every time. His iconic lisp makes it difficult to parse whether he’s saying “zoiks” or “yoiks.” The latter would seem more likely, as “yoiks” and its sister “hoiks” have a long history as hunting words. On a bright and early morning in 1843, Sir Godfrey calls for his friend to hurry and saddle up: “Hoik, 'squire! . . . hoik, hoik! High wind him! Drag on him, yoiks, tally-ho!" (Mills 125). On the tail of a fox chase in 1774, a hunter in pursuit exclaims, “Yoiks, hark forward!” (Kelly 6). Contextually, neither sound too far from the modernized “Zoinks, let’s scram, Scoob!” The first “zoiks” was penned around 1584, in a sonnet of all things: “With mightie maters mynd I not to mell, / As copping Courts, or Comonwelthis, or Kings / Quhais craig zoiks fastest, let tham sey thame sell; / My thoght culd nevir think vpon sik things” (Montgomery 1–4). I can’t claim a clue about what the rest means, but “zoiks fastest” leads me to think this is a “jink”/”juke” situation; in “zoiking”, the narrator is fleeing from the cowersome courts, commonwealths, and kings. Coincidentally, “mynd I not to mell” sounds almost adjacent to “meddle,” another word popularized by Scooby-Doo. All of the “zoinks” family are employed as interjections preceding movement.*

In sum, while “jinkies” appears to have had some relevance at the time of Scooby-Doo’s inception, “jeepers” is a bit dated in comparison, and “zoinks” has a vast etymological tree but no direct precursors. The advantage to having a cast of characters who are, in the words of Paul Dini, “frozen in time,” is that they are living time capsules. We can choose any point within 50 years and see unique perceptions of culture, politics, music, style, and our focus: vocabulary. But how well do these perceptions line up with reality?

*All, that is, except one. “Yoiks” may also be used to refer to egg yolks, as in a cookbook from 1762: “Take a large Fowl, or a Pound of Veal, as much grated Bread, half a Pound of Sewet . . . Mace, two Cloves, half a Nutmeg grated, about a large Tea Spoonful of Lemon-peel, and the Yoiks of two Eggs” (Glasse 38). Add an olive toothpick on top and you have a Shaggy sandwich!

References

Chakraborty, Pritesh, and Anuradha Dosad. “Comic Monthly 1922: Exploring Form and Themes.” Department of English, Vidyasagar University, vol. 15, 2022, pp. 112–125.

“Ella Cinders.” Montana Standard, 29 Sept. 1936, p. 11.

Funk, Charles Earle, and Charles Earle Funk. “Foreword.” Horsefeathers, and Other Curious Words, Harper & Row, New York, 1958, pp. Ix–x.

Glasse, Hannah. “Made-Dishes.” The New Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, John Exshaw, 1762, pp. 38–39.

Harper, Douglas. “Etymology of jink.” Online Etymology Dictionary, 28 Sept. 2017, https://www.etymonline.com/word/jink.

Iseli, Marcel. “Jinkies! You’ll Never Believe What Velma’s Catchphrase Means.” Linguablog, Iseli International Commerce, 18 Sept. 2022, linguaholic.com/linguablog/jinkies-scooby-doo/.

"Jinkie." Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/jinkie_adj

Kate Davies Designs. “Jinkies Pattern.” Ravelry, SARK, Nov. 2021, www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/jinkies.

Kelly, Hugh. “Epilogue.” The Romance of an Hour: A Comedy of Two Acts in Prose. G. Kearsley, 1774, line 6.

Mills, John. “A Meet of the Olden Time.” Ainsworth’s Magazine, edited by William Harrison Ainsworth, vol. 4, Chapman and Hall, London, 1843, p. 125.

Montgomery, Alexander. “To R. Hudsone (Sonnet 2).” The Poems of Alexander Montgomery, edited by David Irving, James Ballantyne and Company, 1821, pp. 76.

Szymborska, Wislawa. “Moment.” Monologue of a Dog. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005, pp.11-13.

Ray. “Diamond Dust.” The Courier-Northerner, 29 July 1938, p. 8.

"Scooby Doo! The Whole World Loves You." Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons, produced by Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, 2010. DVD.Whitburn, Joel. “The Songs.” Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories 1890 - 1954: The History of American Popular Music, Record Research Inc, Menomonee Falls, WI, 1986, p. 533.

#essay #SDWAY #catchphrases

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mysticvixin · 4 months

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INTRODUCTION.

Greetings. I'm MysticVixin. I'm an artist striving to create something good in this world. If not just a single smile or laugh. Seeing as the digital realm is getting infested with generative parasites, me along with many artists are becoming digital rufugees. That is to say I'm not intending to downplay real rufugees by any means. Considering I come from a place of privledge.

Though I'm willing to explain my point. As an artist, especially in a modern digital world, I'm more or less required to share my art everywhere. There is a pressure to be consistant and to have it on multiple platforms. This is because both possible employers and clients need to see your work to commission or work with you.

Which is to say that with the introduction of artificially generated 'artworks' as well as artificial intelligence training stealing the hard work of millions of artists worldwide, it would be like working a 9-5 position for possibly decades only for a new boss to be step in, take all of your work from since you were hired, attempt to reconstruct your handwriting, math, notes and everything you learned then getting a promotion.

In time, you will then be let go because.. why pay an employee when you can just have something better do it for free after already taking and learning everything that you can do and faster?

So what exactly are you supposed to do in that situation when all the largely well known offices you could 'work' for either proudly or discreetly claim that their employees' work is nothing more than free labor to steal and utilize for their companies?

Obviously you would feel forced to take down all of your hard work to avoid the problem all together even if it may already be too late and seek new offices that don't think your work is unvaluable. Or if they mention they have third party bosses that would like to take your work give you the option to opt out from interacting with them.

Thus.. this is why I am here now. Trying to find a space I can share my work openly instead of having to either give my work up to artificial intelligence training, heavily alter and hide my work with harsh watermarks, or attempting to datapoison my work in hopes it would taint anyone that attempts to take my hard work and use it.

With that said, Greetings. I'm MysticVixin. I'm an artist striving to create a name for myself with hopes of bringing some good into this world. Even if it's as simple as making someone smile or a laugh. I'm also an aspiring vtuber/pngtuber trying to create a small close-knit community and audience for myself casually in hopes of making new connections and learning new things.

I believe this platform is going to get back on its feet with the rest of the digital rufugees possibly finding their place here. I personally decided this one due to how accessible it is in terms of posts as well as browsing. At least it trys to stop me from doom scrolling. Not only that it's on desktop so I don't have to type endlessly on mobile.... Unless I want to.

It also just has that casual sort of feel to it that makes me feel a bit more motivated to post my work more casually. Without the added pressure that other social platforms seem to envoke in me. Either because it's too big and largely populated or just not nearly as accessible. [I promise I'm not a hipster.. I think.]

Other things that intrigue me is how I could keep all of my different mediums separated in multiple blogs. For example my photography can be in one, poetry/writing in another, and even just a personal blog to just hang out and shitpost as a few examples. Then my favorite aspect that I would love to utilize is the anon or user 'ask me' posts where I can possibly build a story through them or just obvously answer random questions!

But enough about stroking Tumblr's ego, currently I'm working on multiple personal projects such as revamping my personal website, recreating stream assets as well as my vtuber sprites, and even a digital social 'game' where you guys call the shots in establishing a florishing collection of creatures! Though I'm still figuring out some details on that front.

Some of my interests besides the obvious include playing games from my childhood that some have been completely forgotten, swimming at the local aquatic center in the summer, walking and listening to music while I pick up random things I find on said walks, shiny things, thinking about humanity and existence, over-thinking said existence, roleplaying, spacing out while animating things in my head, politics to some degree, and pretending my life has meaning.

I've also been exploring more into spirituality and am drawn towards religions of nature. I'm not exactly certain of which I would more likely identify with though paganism and wiccan seem to stick the most. Since I was young I have always been drawn to the moon and the tide. So my practice is likely water based in some manner. Seeing as it flows through all living things. I even remember having a phase as a teenager and making a sort of altar for aesthetics and even lighting candles but not really understanding how best to proceed. Though I did make one spell that I can still recall.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I can't wait to share some of these things with you guys and see where this journey may take us. Now if you excuse me, I got a logo to recreate and eggs to find. [Hopefully you can help me hatch them!]

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darlingpoppet · 1 month

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hi thanks for the liminal spaces update! i was wondering what sort of styles the characters are wearing?

Hey anon thanks so much for reading and thank you for your ask!!

I seriously plundered the tumblr hipster blogs circa 2013 for this story, lads, let me tell you!! I’m not sure I described very well the fashions everyone in this story is wearing lest I fall into Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way territory but these are the sorts of images I had in mind for each of the characters who have made an appearance so far (sorry in advance for the potato quality of some of these images… also just in case it needs to be said, the hair & skin colors of these clothing/hairstyle models may not necessarily reflect those of the Hadesgame versions of these characters, which are the versions I’m working with in this story):

ZAGREUS

Recently Super Groupies came out with this literal Zagreus inspired zipper jacket… it only came out this year but I can still see someone in the 2010s wearing something like it so I just described him as having this exact jacket LOL. I imagined him arranging it a bit differently than the model however, instead he wears it with black skinny jeans and colorful high top converse shoes.

It’s actually really easy to imagine Zagreus as your typical millennial/gen Z college kid without too many alterations…

just look at these boys with their extremely Zagreus-looking hairstyles haha! The boy wearing blue in particular was the inspiration for Zag having those chunky square-cut diamond earrings… it’s cute to imagine them poking out from under one of those knitted caps!

ACHILLES

I like to imagine that the Achilles of this story has a bit of a gender-fluid/genderless approach to fashion, so I picture him wearing a lot of the things that were popular with hipsters of all genders, such as flannel, low-cut t-shirts & tank tops, long necklaces, chunky/slouchy cardigan sweaters, skinny jeans, and wide-brimmed hats. He wears his hair long or ties it up into a messy bun.

At home both he & Patroclus do a bit of the athleisure thing, so especially pretty soon he’s gonna be in crop/tank tops and sweatpants a lot (or in nothing at all haha!!!)

PATROCLUS

Idk I think I just see Pat as that sort of natural class-act who can wear a plain t-shirt or a band collar shirt with a nice pair of slacks and dressy shoes and look ultra sophisticated without even trying. Maybe he does that 2010s thing of wearing an unbuttoned vest over the shirt or he’ll borrow a pair of suspenders from the “2010s Recession Hipster Dude Starter Pack” every once in a while, but overall he doesn’t need much (but also imagine he’s holding a book wherever he is lol.)

Also of course, that full beard and man-bun look of the era is so quintessential and fits him perfectly!

THANATOS

I actually lived in Japan for all of the 2010s haha so I pictured Than more like the sort of young men I would sometimes see around Tokyo with multiple layers of long, knee/ankle-length cardigan robes/jackets, and those wide, billowing pants in perhaps a parachute or bontan style.

As for the gorget necklace… you know how sometimes you find a cool accessory in a vintage shop or whatever and you’re like “I am going to make this thing my entire personality for the next year”? hahaha yeah that’s Than here. Something gold or brass like the top picture that he wears under his black collared shirts, like the bottom picture.

I might come back to this once Meg makes an appearance, but for now that’s all I’ve got! Thanks for asking, this was fun <3

#emica chat #liminal spaces (pza dreamers au)

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smokeybrandreviews · 10 months

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Bone of my Sword

Scott Pilgrim is a franchise I hold near and dear to my heart. I was already a fan of the comic when it dropped way back when as I WAS those kids. When the OG graphic novel first released, Scott Pilgrims’ Precious little life, I was that twenty year old, hipster douchebag, who knew everything but absolutely nothing. I, personally, didn’t struggle with relationships (fortunate to have met the great love of my life early on and never looked back), but I had friends who were desperately trying to maneuver that mire of self-discovery and intimacy. Scott Pilgrim is the distillation of the Millennial experience during out prime years (if you buy into that sort of thing), captured perfectly on the page by Bryan Lee O’Malley. That said, the film adaption? Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? That is a Millennial culture milestone. When that movie released back in the early Tens, it spoke to me, directly. It spoke to a lot of us. We were those wayward idiots, living in garages, spinning our wheels in terms of careers, just vibing away to dope music and life experiences. I remember being that young, discovering The Killers and Kid Cudi, moving out of state on a whim just chasing new stimuli. Seeing that film, was like watching a crib notes of my entire life experience to that point and it left a strong impression. If I wasn’t a fan before, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World definitely made me one. I showed that movie to anyone who would watch it, gushing about its overlooked genius, and lamenting how there wasn't an anime or something, which adapted the entirety of the comic. Fast forward thirteen years later and, as if the Netflix gods heard me pining all those years ago, they delivered unto us Scott Pilgrim Takes off. I have feelings.

Scott Pilgrim Takes off is a goddamn masterpiece! I absolutely adored this show. It's exactly not what you think and i thought making that choice, was a brilliant one. Don't get me wrong, i am a Scott Pilgrim purist but, if we're being honest, with two decades worth of perspective behind me, the OG Scott Pilgrim story is kind of bullsh*t. Scott is the worst and never really had to reconcile for that sh*ttiness. He dated Knives and never really caught any flack for it on his end. He mooched off Wallace until he started mooching off Ramona. Scott was a scumbag on par with e very other Evil Ex, with the exception of, maybe, Roxie. Removing him from the equation not only gave Scott the distance from his would-be actions to grow into a solid, redeemed character, but gave the rest of the cast that very same opportunity. It gave Ramona that opportunity, one she sorely needed. One that we, as fans, didn't even really KNOW she needed. Giving the big chair to Ramona allowed her to reconcile how terrible she was toward her Exes. It gave her so much more agency than just being "won" at the behest of the weirdly gross and aggressively abusive, Gideon Graves. Takes Off is as much Ramona's story as it is Scott's and that sh*t makes for the overall narrative, becoming something more. Adding Ramona's story to this tale, adds a layer of maturity, which makes sense considering it's been twenty years since Scott first punched Matthew Patel into pocket change. Altering the perspective from Scott to Ramona, taking the narrative from one of destruction to healing, absolutely MADE the entire franchise. Altering the perspective from Scott to Ramona, taking the narrative from one of destruction to healing, absolutely MADE the entire franchise.

This take on the story sees Scott actually "defeated" by Matty Pat and the ensuing mystery of his perceived "death" sends Ramona on a quest to find the truth. During this journey, SHE is forced to "fight" with her Exes, and by fight, i mean actually apologize to them for being a sh*tty person. Ramona finally stopped running after she met Scott and he basically murdered all of her evil exes. That made for, at the time, some cool imagery but it was, objectively, an absurd way to properly unpack your traumas. Especially the ones you create yourself. And let me tell you, that League of Evil Exes? Yeah, Ramona definitely created that sh*t. We get hints of each villain origin story in the film and graphic novels but Takes off is ABOUT those relationships and why they ended the way they did. It doesn't take long to understand that Ramona, too, is just as terrible as Scott, but in a different way. Seriously, Roxie's episode hammers that home with such intensity, you don't have a choice but to accept it as gospel. Every Evil Ex gets this treatment. Mostly. Once again the Katayanagi Twins get shafted but that's their thing and they kind of don't seem like assholes anyway. Not really in the previous takes on the story, either. Like, those relationships should have keyed us into just how f*cking destructive the trail to Ramona's flower truly was but we were kids back then, too, and that's the brilliance of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: We're not kids anymore and neither are these characters.

I'm thirty-nine years old. While i love Scott Pilgrim for what it was, as a dude two decades removed from that time in my life, i can honestly say i was a f*cktard. All twenty-somethings are. We haven't figured out life, at all, and some of us won't even as we approach our mid-Thirties. By the time you're my age, however, once should hope you have a handle on your sh*rt enough to recognize that, maybe, way back when, during your Twenty-something scumbag days, that you were a little bit of a scumbag. That's what Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is doing. That's what the story is about. It's catharsis and acceptance which comes with the benefit of time and space. Bryan Lee O'Malley published the first Scott Pilgrim story when he was about twenty-five. That means he wrote it at an even earlier age and it reads as such. That narrative reflects the emotional maturity of someone who had experienced a handful of years unto themselves, outside the protective bubble of their parents, give or take. Takes Off is written by a mid-Forties, adult man, who has had a life. O'Malley has been married, found success with his goofy little story about wayward love, walked the Hollywood red carpet, made a name for himself, and suffered the sting divorce. He's not punching his problems or running away from them anymore, he's confronting them head on and accepting that, a lot of the issues in his life, are because of his choices. As i approach the cusp of the big Four-Zero myself, i recognize that. I accept that. I've been doing that. To see it happening in one of the most culturally defining stories of my generation, is both comforting and surreal. Scott Pilgrim Takes off is a wonderful show. It's the most appropriate period on a sentence we Millennials started writing way back when we took our first steps into adulthood and i love it for that. That said, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is the best thing to ever come out of this franchise. Fight me about it.

#Scott Pilgrim #Scott Pilgrim vs. The World #Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

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daisyachain · 3 months

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On the topic of steampunk, we might be far enough from the 2008-2012 mainstream emergence to look back on it as a completed cycle and try and diagnose why all that happened. You could say it was one of the last full English-language subcultures (integrated music, literature, aesthetic, ideology, public discussion) to have its moment before the post-social media proliferation of microcultures. Off the top of my head, you could see the last wave crest in the 2010s with: the Atlanta-based trap scene, the west-coat hipster agglomeration, and then intercontinental shut-in steampunk.

This is speaking from the location of shut-in central, so there are probs other mainstream waves that I'm missing, but, defining mainstream as something that might reach a resident of Nothing, Nowhere, you could argue that it's less than mainstream. Grime? Big in the UK, not so much across the Anglosphere. Soundcloud/mumble rap? Influential on a younger generation, doesn't quite have the same established cross-media cultural complex associated with it as trap....as far as I'm aware..........feel free to chime in on what I've missed.........

Back to steampunk, it didn't absorb into/influence the mainstream the way that trap and hipster scenes did. The key crossover has been the visual aesthetic associated with the movement rather than the music or ideology--your average person most likely saw something with gears in an online store without ever hearing the kind of associated corset cabaret or reading China Mieville (I also haven't read China Mieville). That seems to leave it as a subculture without a centre, a recurring visual motif still apparently going strong without any kind of emotional/philosophical backing for good or for bad. Still, it's not just gears, begging the question: how on earth can steampunk music exist, if it's not experimental noise?

The basis of steampunk is alternate history and alternate technology: could the tools around which 'modern' life is structured have been developed using a different underlying technology, and would that difference in technology have altered the way that the massive historical distortion of the Industrial Revolution played out? If steam technology (implemented ~1800) were the basis of transport development rather than the internal combustion engine (~1860), would the suite of technologies that followed have skipped out on important developments such as electrified appliances/digital computing/etc.?

There are works published through the 20th century that could fit with the idea, but the genre and terminology come up alongside cyberpunk--not after it, since The Anubis Gates (1983) predates the broader discussion of cyberpunk that followed Neuromancer (1984). The genre builds in anglo sci-fi/fantasy spaces through the '80s before having a mainstream breakthrough in the late 00s.

Steampunk looks back and melds Industrial/Victorian aesthetics with modern ideas right after the goth rock scene emerges. Hard to say whether steampunk was born out of goth aesthetics, but there is some interplay between the subcultures. Goth rock looks back to the romantic impulses of the 19th century, seeking a heightened emotional world that reacts to modern science and commerce the way that Romantics reacted to Enlightenment science and physiocracy/early capitalism.

On the other hand, steampunk seeks to place those modern ideas within the past, not rejecting the clarity of 'modern' ideas for the mystery of magic, but rather making 'modern' ideas seem more compelling by dressing them up in antiquated aesthetics. A car? Banal. A steam-powered car? Cool. A steam-powered car with a carriage body? Cooler. Steampunk renders the ordinary alien, making it appealing to romantic impulses without discarding enlightenment ideology*

*Heavy caveat.

To try and sum it up: steampunk is about how people/societies unfamiliar with 'modern' ways of living would react to and interact with modern technology. It's about how technology shapes patterns of movement, thought, and living, and how a mix-up in the order of technological development could throw off the social order that we're familiar with. Or, it can be about how the tendency for a society to organize in certain ways will manifest itself no matter what technology is available to use, and how familiar patterns might emerge with distinctly unfamiliar technology. Did the Industrial Revolution shape us*, or did we* shape the Industrial Revolution? Was the single defining era of social and technological development (NOT IN A GOOD WAY) set in stone, or was it an accident of chance?

The caveat is that the use of the Industrial Revolution as the focal point for steampunk stories means that most of them ignore, elide, or positively portray the imperialist war, torture, murder, chattel slavery, genocide, and theft carried out by European states to fund industrial developments (with some exceptions, e.g. Everfair). Most steampunk stories are written by upper/middle-class Anglophone US or British writers, imagining the implementation of alternate technologies within white/European/English society to create an alternate version of the author's personal sphere. Rather than looking at the integrated systems that enabled/drove technological development, steampunk has a habit of considering technological discovery as pure chance and then going from there.

An offshoot/parallel evolution of Anglosphere steampunk is Japanese steampunk, which I don't have as much experience with. Taking a surface-level look with Miyazaki and Anno, steampunk aesthetics come out in stories where destructive industry is encroaching on pre-industrial areas. These works are less focused on the consequences of different technologies or different paths of development so much as they are focused on the impact of technological development in general--industrialization is industrialization, whether by steam, gasoline, genetic engineering, or anything else. Rather than standing in for an alternate historical path, steampunk creations are used to more clearly mark the line between 'old' and 'modern', isolation and integration, pre-Perry and post-.

Side note: I'd classify dieselpunk/biopunk/dungeonpunk as steampunk, while cyberpunk stays separate. Cyberpunk asks: how will our current society shape the implementation of future technologies (i.e. if space ships and time travel are invented in a highly stratified, monopolistic commercial society, would they ever be used for good)? Steampunk+ asks: how would our current society have come about with different technologies? One takes the present as given and looks forward, the other looks backward and tries to alter or erase the present.

Now that that's out of the way: what are the actual artifacts of steampunk that we have? Why are they steampunk?

The word 'steampunk' comes about to describe literature, but it's steampunk construction projects that are the proof of concept for this movement. They show what could have been accomplished by chance with technology available in the time preceding 'modern' developments. More importantly, they're physical hobbies with a defined, challenging-but-not-impossible endpoint and they're a fun thing to do that you can show off to your friends. Unlike some subcultures where you must 'be', steampunk is something you can 'do.' I'd bet that it's the building aspect of the subculture that has kept it alive this long, when the aesthetic/ideological part of the subculture can come into/fall out of fashion. People get into baking or woodworking in a much longer-term and fulfilling way than they get into black leather. For the most part.

Steampunk literature, then, is a harder part of the movement to pin down. Earlier works like The Anubis Gate and The Difference Engine are more on the social scifi/speculative fiction side of things while later (kids') books like the Alexander Pryor series/Leviathan/hell, even RQG use the technology to facilitate old-fashioned rip-roaring adventure. There is a pretty even split between steampunk books that lean into the alternate history/specfic part of the genre and books that use the concept to replicate the aesthetics of pulp without seeming outdated. I say confidently. The thorny questions of tech and society that drove early steampunk die off in favour of looking cool, leaving a relatively slim canon. For all its flaws, there remains a consistent stream of specfic cyberpunk coming out through the 21st century in a way that doesn't happen with steampunk.

Steampunk fashion is pretty self-explanatory: it takes the stripped-down pre-injection-moulding look of early machinery and applies it to everything, with a healthy injection of bronze spray paint. The griminess of faded dyes, coal smoke, or ink illustrations is applied over a fairly colourful moment in fashion history in a sort of offshot of the Victorian goth movement. Not much to say here apart from corsets, gears, and goggles, fashion is fashion.

Last thing, music. Where the lit/aesthetic starts in the 1980s, the music develops more into the late 90s and 00s. Steampunk-associated music tends to use the cello, upright bass, harpsichord, violin, and other 'classical' or 'classy' instruments; tends to have operetta-type vocals (clean, enunciated, sung spoken-word), tends to have a straightforward 4/4 rhythm coming out of goth rock. By using acoustic instruments and avoiding guitar (acoustic or electric) and drums, it follows the same alt-history philosophy where post-80s (big, glitzy, synthy) songwriting is implemented with non-pop instruments.

In contrast to the regressive tendencies of steampunk lit, steampunk music has a female presence and draws from third-wave feminist readings of Victorian social mores. Associated artists like Emilie Autumn try to apply modern conceptions of liberation to characters in their lyrics who chafe against the strictures of the steampunk era. Alternately, bands like Steam Powered Giraffe or Whatever The Hell That Obscure Guy Was That Sheetghosting Mentioned (I Forget) use steampunk contraptions in their stage shows, integrating the technological rather than ideological steampunk into their music.

So: (anglophone) steampunk has a philosophy of 'what if?' set out mostly by 1980s sci-fi, an aesthetic that develops in conversation with the new romantics/goth scene, a crafting subculture that is mostly disconnected from the ideology of steampunk due to functioning as a fun hobby, and a lit scene that doesn't really get off the ground due to a lack of willingness by majority-white authors to engage with the foundations of our world. Because you can't go too far into 19th century alt history without running into imperialism and slavery, the genre in general has turned away from substance and towards style. The thread that connects the various iterations/expressions of steampunk is the desire to recreate a familiar song/society/contraption with an unfamiliar technology, a wish to re-evaluate the current/accepted/modern by pulling it apart and recreating it from its constituent bits, but mostly a desire to dress up cool and imagine if you were a guy in a top hat who made eight hundred thousand pound sterling from your father's cousin's exploitation of people in an unimaginably cruel suffering machine

#kelsey rambles #Corrections Welcome. it's just intriguing how cringe and empty it is as a subgenre but how big it got at the sunset of the subculture #as we know it (1950-2015 RIP).

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katherinebotten · 11 months

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Diabetes Type III

Two hipsters are in Footscray Mall, they are on a date. It is a guy and a girl. A homeless man asks them for money. The girl gives him money and smiles knowing the code she’s sending to her male date is that she’s a good person.

The homeless guy talks back to her and they have a fake conversation for about ten seconds, because it's a part of the exchange that the homeless guy is paid to pretend he doesn't deserve to be on the street. His role in this three-person play recollects him from deviation. She doesn't want to be talking to him. She is pretending. She shouldn't be on a date with a guy who she has to perform a false-self in front of. The homeless guy doesn't want to earn his keep like a clown at The Royal Adelaide Show. Everyone involved is being dishonest. No one actually wants to be engaging with another. Even on a date you are just stuffing holes.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and the homeless man has further calcified his hopeless clown mask and the hipster retard has further calcified her Married to the Mayor in the 1940s mask. They are making a random man Work For The Dole and no-one's Autonomic Nervous System is relaxed. The two hipsters on a date and the homeless man just played out old survival strategies, which feels bad every time we do it, even if it's unconscious, because it adds to our vibrational signature, and because playing small is false and the metaphysical false is the same as running off batteries instead of running off infinite effortlessly regenerative Source Energy (like biodynamic/permaculture).

VS.

Later that day all parties from the above minor exchange will engage in a mix of over- or under-consumption, depending on each parties long pre-established coping mechanisms, as they will now know their attempts at everyday freedom were met by the border security of their bodies nervous system’s, and their visa applications to leave the confinement of the Old Survival Law were rejected.

A grief sits underneath.

Physics is subtle.

Energetically the hipster couple on a date in Footscray:

Made the homeless guy be a comedian.

Energetically raped the homeless man.

Limited variation, having the effect of bleaching culture.

Were nazi’s killing out variation.

Were big industry mandating monoculture.

Were the Work For The Dole police.

Demonstrated violence against women by re-affirming limited female behaviour.

The girl raped her male date by forcing him to stand-witness to her fear-based programming.

For three dollars the girl took two men’s freedom.

The homeless guy drugged himself, and the two on the date, by perpetuating a scenario that would result in all parties acting out in a way later on to re-establish regulation of their nervous systems.

The two leftists on a date would be jailed in spiritual court for starting off a reaction that will inevitably end in the inorganic chemical alteration of three of God’s Children’s physiology.

This could be through the obvious avenues, or the less obvious for example: cursing at someone from inside a car, gossiping, over-cleaning, taking melatonin to sleep, drinking coffee, being on antidepressants, wearing any shoe that isn’t a bare-foot shoe, getting tattoos, or eating fruit.

If you explain this to a magician they understand.

I gave up being an influential fine artist to become a magician.

I am looking for other magicians.

I was driving from Adelaide to Melbourne the long route, no highways, and went through lots of tiny townships. In country Australia everyone is dressed like an eshay.

Brunswick East has a significant Lack of Culture. There is no Actual Difference in Brunswick East. Karen R. Hurd is a biochemist and nutritionist in America. She talks about the condition of the villi lining the small intestine. You want the villi to be standing tall, proud, engorged with blood and vital but within its natural resting-working-states, and independent. Like the Great Indian Spirit of America. The food we eat makes our villi flat and smooshed like when fake-artists make “felted” fabric out of clumping fibre together, or a backpacker's squashed dreads. In Brunswick East the villi is smooth. Conflict and disagreement is important for the ecosystem.

VS.

Rap music makes villi flat because it is about bandaging fear instead of confronting it.

In Melbourne Fine Art sex, hate, death, apathy, violence, drugs, and post-modernism is common and cheap. In a country town it is easy and simple to do ice and dress like Eminem. Simple signifiers secure safety. The most hard looking Unit is the most scared Unit. The most stylish cool Melbourne artist whore is the most scared Melbourne artist whore. When you act on being scared you are not an artist. Anyone can contribute - to contribute does not mean to create. Melbourne art galleries with death names is smooth-villi culture. It is stable to do what is common. Our inner-child wants to feel safe. The nervous system is dysregulated and we run on defaulted survival mechanisms like layering second-hand designer clothing. It feels good to pitch a ball low like when the anaesthetist puts the gas mask over your mouth and nose and says to take “a big deep breath”. Girls starve themselves for summer and the prize is being looked at.

Everyone who says they like Ice Spice is a regressed loser not an artist. There is a lot of confusion in fine art about who is an artist. I know two artists they are On The Dimensional Quest, and the rest are parrots pursuing what is horizontal. Contributing to the culture is not the same as making a new one. Death art is mono-culture, it’s one crop. Low-ball anaesthetic art has the same effect as antibiotics and maybe those who can’t survive infection should die.

I’m honouring my villi and sculpting it like a true fine artist which means one that creates. Everyone else is a phoney two-bit actor, I didn’t know we were living in LA. We must get underneath the programming given to us by our parents, who were given their programming, all the way back to Adam and Eve, who were gifted consciousness by leaving the Garden. Underneath all the lying.

No one caring about what is new could be on The Quest. Artists must only care about what is True.

I am guiding the villi to stand up on their own and be independent and autonomous and in doing so the villi are morphing from Bob Marley dreads to big antennaes like from the 1970’s.

The villi are picking up on more frequencies and the villi themselves are acting like sails on a super-yacht and I’m sailing around quicker and smoother and sending out signals and wavelength beep bops and I’m begging for my billionaire magickian husband to pick up on the frequency because I feel so fucking alone.

At our core sits our subconscious, the designer authenticator. It sends out a wavelength. Everything in your material plane is a sculptural representation of this personal wavelength. The way I’m making art today is rejecting the physical world and cultivating Great Internal Change. This guy is coming to fuck me and sail around Australia with me and at night he decorates me with Tibetan Prayer Flags and then stuffs them into my cunt with his fist.

I am so lonely I feel like I was born in New Caledonia without friends, only books and TV and I’m staring out into the ocean and I might as well have cataracts because who cares about Vision when you can’t see.

Fine Art is merely fashion. Transcendental Meditation is definitively a cult and fake but they talk about if your mind is an ocean then dropping down deep into The Source Of All Thought at the bottom like James Cameron’s Deep Sea Challenger.

Fine Artists are cowards who need to become magicians but most are too scared.

I had a friend, we don’t talk anymore, that’s the pattern. She said “the way someone looks is the least interesting thing about them”. A vibrational signature radiates out and casts marks like Style, and a vampire mirrors-back and sneaks under diamond-security vault laser beam radars and gets in close because Glamour dresses snakes up like trance-inducing pendulums. Iconoclasm hones in on the skills we need to remain present when the Nervous System is Dysregulated and taken by false idols like low-value beauty. This is a quality difference similar to chocolates that look the same but one brand leaves a coat of oil in your mouth. There is a resonance difference. We come to learn to uncouple from the authority of appearance. Iconoclasm helps us develop our own internal energetic compass. Artists become tuning forks. Artists become theremin's. Melbourne Germany art heads are Anko-ass Kmart-ass spectrum bleachers and magicians are and should be invisible because vampires don’t deserve to see them. Making a painting or a sculpture or having a show is mediaeval. Saved by grace through faith, not works.

Spider tattoo prostitutes are the only people economically able to live alone in Australia. Patrick Sandberg and Paul Cupo contributed to culture and now they can holiday in Miami and live alone in Los Angeles and New York, doing what they do best, which is writing and thinking and putting clothes together, watching movies, laughing and having friends, but in Melbourne there are no rewards. It’s Diabetes Type Three.

I took a long service leave to go find us all something else. I sit at Williamstown and stare at the water. There's a giant ladder reaching into the sky. Practitioners like Irene and Seth Lyon, Jessa Reed, Neville Godard, and Josef Strau, hold the hand of the people vibrationally below them and lift them up. This is the chain of atonement described in A Course In Miracles. We extend upward like a spire constructed like vernacular architecture from bits and whatever is around. It is DIY punk but not ugly and only elegant because it is pure purpose and function, not identity. The people at the top you can’t see because they are vibrating at such a rapid speed and of such fine a frequency that they have dissolved into space and time. The string from the bottom of the ground to the top of the sky reads like a historical time-line of technology evolving. At the bottom the people are like VHS and in the middle they are like Blu-ray and near the top they are streaming, and at the top top they are just Imagination which is God carnate.

When I spin so fast I dissolve for the final time I am not coming back to help anyone!

#katherine botten

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electricalstemplates · 5 months

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Could you make a display name and a medium length alter template based off of the demon hipster chicks from Scott pilgrim?

Here you are!! Hope you like it!

:e:￫NAME ⤸ PRONOUNS#⊣

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dustedmagazine · 2 years

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Dust Volume 8, Number 12

Blood Incantation (but not Blood/Incantation)

Dusted closes out 2022 with blood and incantation.

Specifically, this Dust features two separate recordings with identical band names, one a split release by a pair of metal bands, one named Blood, the other Incantation, the other also metal but more atmospheric whose name is Blood Incantation. It’s a lot of blood. A lot of incantation.

But never fear if your tastes are less sanguinary. We’ve also got experimental klezmer, power pop, sound art, new weird traditionalism, synth pop, deep house, death metal and jazz both free and more traditional. This edition’s contributors include Bryon Hayes, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Patrick Masterson and Jim Marks.

Baltic Furs — Contemporary Ruin (Round Bale Recordings)

Contemporary Ruin by Baltic Furs

For its final release of 2022, the Minnesota-based Round Bale Recordings label offers a cassette from someone in its inner circle. Baltic Furs is the alter ego of Matt Irwin, a graphic designer whose optical artistry enswathes some of the label’s output. Irwin is a drummer-cum-synthesist whose aural hue leans toward the inky black end of the spectrum. On Contemporary Ruin, both Irwin’s percussionist origins and his tendency toward the inchoate are on display. Dreamlike, dimly lit images attempt to bring themselves into focus as warped, bell-shaped tones emanate from unholy objects. Irwin is signalling the coming of an impending disaster: it could be the end of the world or a demon emerging from its resting place. He’s happy to let the listener decide their fate. The latter half of the cassette begets emergent strains of melody that seem to brighten as the music runs its course. The tenderness is nascent and without form, but it’s also indicative that Contemporary Ruin is the first page in the next chapter of Irwin’s engaging narrative.

Bryon Hayes

Black Ox Orkestar — Everything Returns (Constellation)

Everything Returns by Black Ox Orkestar

Even when it dances, klezmer has a melancholic air. It commemorates, after all, a Jewish-East European culture that flourished despite centuries of persecution until ending, abruptly, in the Holocaust. True, Jewish emigres brought this rollicking but wistful concoction of clarinet and fiddle, elegy and celebration, with them in the diaspora. It reached, even, the experimental precincts of Montreal, where members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion formed Black Ox Orkestar in the early aughts, then left it fallow for a decade and a half. Everything Returns is their lovely (and timely) return, a pensive exploration of cross-cultural discourse that melds Jewish, gypsy, Arab and European traditions in bittersweet rumination. This is music made of shadows and sighs, but ready, nonetheless, for the fight. It’s opening salvo, “Tish Nign,” layers wordless vocals over piano, then gathers its strength in martial cadences of bass clarinet. “Skotshne” sparkles with cimbalom, a dulcimer-like instrument with a ghostly echo; it skitters over a skeletal foundation of drums and acoustic bass. But it’s “Viderkol” that stops you short, a dusky lament hedged in by the low hum of clarinet, a run of piano. Even sung in English, it has a foreign, historical aura, as the principals remember the lost with the gentlest, least bitter sort of sadness. “There’s something in us that could make us whole,” they sing, and maybe they mean music and remembering.

Jennifer Kelly

Blood/Incantation — Split 7” (Hell’s Headbangers)

Not Blood Incantation, but Blood and Incantation (see what they did there?) collaborate on this divertingly atavistic split record. Blood Incantation seems to provide the newest front opened in the Hipster Metal Wars — and to be honest, this reviewer can’t really fault the offended (“ambient death metal?”). If anyone might have any sort of right to defend the traditional boundaries of the kingdom of Metal ov Death, the dudes in Blood might be able to claim it. The German band has been making records since 1986, and the two new tracks on this split record are still the same old moldy stuff, a grinding, guttural assault on good taste. Incantation is by contrast the fresher face, having only started releasing music 1990—but the band certainly has the bigger name. Their tune, “Quantum Firmament,” is also the more engaging side of the split. Whether you find this record to be more than a sort of scenester-snarky, vinyl-mediated pun may depend on the degree of your interest in Incantation’s music; if you dig the band, “Quantum Firmament” is worth hearing.

Jonathan Shaw

Blood Incantation — Timewave Zero (Century Media)

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Denver death metal psychonauts Blood Incantation have never concealed their love of ambient, cosmische, new age synths, et al. They also were clear even before putting out their second record Hidden History of the Human Race that their third would be their own entry into those fields. A 40-minute, two-track EP, Timewave Zero has (based on comments) clearly come as an unpleasant surprise to a grouchy, vocal minority of their existing fanbase. but those more into avowed influence Klaus Schulze than blastbeats, death metal growls and intense riffs will find that Blood Incantation know what they’re doing. This isn’t just the quartet noodling around with some neat synth sounds; there’s pacing, sculpting and evidence of a compositional eye on both halves of the EP. Timewave Zero, then, is admirable on multiple fronts, both as a totally solid record and as evidence of a band determined to follow its muse even in the face of requests to keep making more of the same.

Ian Mathers

Dazy — OUTOFBODY (Lame-O)

OUTOFBODY by Dazy

Power pop is harder than it looks. It balances on a knife edge between crusty fuzz and open-hearted tunefulness, and it’s easily tipped towards noise or daffiness. But James Goodson, out of Richmond, gets the blend just about right, a bit to the sweet side of Teenage Fan Club, a bit more muscular than the Raspberries. Indeed, the buzzy, frictive “On My Way” sounds like the Dirtbombs crossed with James, which is to say gloriously clangorous but with its earnest heart showing. “Motionless Parade” swoons and jangles in the vein of True West and the Rain Parade, while “Choose Your Ramone” hilariously amps it up, with a blistering, squalling guitar solo that is neither Joey nor Johnny. Goodson may never be a big star (or a Big Star), but it’s fun watching him try.

Jennifer Kelly

Bruno Duplant — Nox (Unfathomless)

nox by Bruno Duplant

Art reckons with life on Nox, which is one of the nine full-length recordings that the ultra-productive French sound artist has realized in 2022. The artist’s statement references observations, both recent and antique, of certain bad navigational habits of humans, to wit, they closely circle things that will scorch them. At least moths, who aren’t noted for their brain mass, have an excuse… But even if you aren’t acquainted with the musician’s intent, you’re likely to grasp this immersive, 40-minute-long piece’s intimations of decay. Gathered and generated sounds creak, crackle, and bob around the listener like the chunks of debris that swirled around your surfboard that one time you fell asleep on the beach at low tide and woke up in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Bill Meyer

Kelman Duran — “Loko” (self-released)

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Kelman Duran is a low-key LA-based Dominican producer who’s made his name on art school dancehall and reggaeton edits, notably 2017’s excellent 1804 Kids. But “Loko” is another animal, blisteringly zooted deep house filth all taut and suspended in that leery-eyed fork in the road where the head says no and makes the good decision but the heart speaks louder, beats yes, makes an ellipsis for you to fill in. Adriana Roslin’s epileptic video (in which she appears, by the way) is the perfect accompaniment, exuding the self-assured swagger of a fashion school grad-turned-social media manager by day and club rat queen by night; you’ll see what I mean when you watch. It’s unclear if this is a brief diversion from his usual speed or a turn toward a more permanent 4/4 producing mode, but either way, Duran has left one of the best dance tracks of 2022 rather late in the going. How late? Consider: At the time I write this, Dust is scheduled to go live in about two hours; “Loko” has been up for less than 24. But we weren’t going to miss out. You shouldn’t, either.

Patrick Masterson

Family Ravine — Jumpthefox (Round Bale Recordings)

Jumpthefox by Family Ravine

With his Family Ravine project, Kevin Cahill navigates a similar path to that of Henry Flynt, welding his avant-garde sensibility to traditional musical styles. Jumpthefox follows hot on the heels of Away & Instinct, and both records document Cahill’s polyglot approach to music making. The musician has created an Interzone-like fusion of American, British and European folk forms, which he has processed through his tireless creative instinct. Cahill builds a fluid-like loam from loops and fragments, which he layers repeatedly into a strange topography. Working primarily with stringed instruments and melodica, Cahill materializes his songs in a spectrum of shades, from shimmering and bright to muted and foreboding. It must be magical to hear his songs being crafted in real time, but we’ll have to settle for experiencing the finished product. This writer is certainly not complaining.

Bryon Hayes

Hot Chip — Freakout/Release (Domino)

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Consistent quality is a great asset for a band and a thrill for fans, but it can have the opposite of a silver lining for us music writers. Freakout/Release is another topnotch set of emotionally mature, sometimes melancholy synthpop bangers from the now sort-of-venerable Hot Chip (their eighth!). It’s not as if they’re not trying new things, heck here you actually hear a couple of guest vocalists (Lou Hayter on “Hard to Be Funky” and a blistering Cadence Weapon on “The Evil That Men Do”) and the title track is more rough-and-tumble than the Chip usually gets. “Down” rides a Universal Togetherness Band sample to dancefloor glory, while tracks like the hopeful “Broken” and the gossamer “Not Alone” show their more emotive strengths. It’s another great record in a career full of them, and if it’s hard to know what more to say, it feels unfair to them to leave it at that.

Ian Mathers

Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker /Julian Kirschner — Routines (Kettlehole)

Routines by Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker / Julian Kirshner

Routines? I don’t know. On the one hand, the title might acknowledge that the three musicians on the album can, either together or separately, be counted upon to be heard in some small space that hosts Chicagoan improvisers, on a pretty routine basis. But the music itself is far from routine, unless you want to take a step back and acknowledge that each musician habitually figures out apposite responses to any given situation. Jim Baker can be relied upon to completely change any sound environment with a pivot of his seat, since that will determine whether one is going to hear his restlessly assertive voice on the piano and or the ozone-scorching sizzles he obtains from his ARP 2600. Keefe Jackson can likewise be counted upon to be equally engaged playing either sopranino or tenor saxophone, but lightning disruption he launches from the first differs profoundly from the mercurial forcefulness he summons on the second. Kirshner can also be expected to keep things moving without lapsing into cliché. But the trio keeps enough variables in play that you’ll never know quite how the music is going to get from start to end.

Bill Meyer

Philip Jeck — Resistenza (Touch)

Resistenza by Philip Jeck

Touch has never been about staying in the past, so it makes sense that the firm would experiment with new formats. Resistenza is a digital-only recording issued on what would have been the 70th birthday of the late Philip Jeck, whose passing was just one of those that has made 2022 an especially rough slog. It’s simultaneously a bit sad and quite poetic that the first (and hopefully not last) posthumous release by an artist whose work was all about the stubborn physicality of vinyl would be a non-physical edition. It comprises two live recordings, both made in 2017-18. The more recent is “Live in Torino,” a fittingly ephemeral sequence of sounds snatched from old records and manipulated into ghostly scraps that spin and bob like the luminous traces left by deep sea fishes. “The Longest Wave,” which was recorded in Jeck’s home town of Liverpool, is quite the opposite. Jeck is joined by Jonathan Raisin, whose piano trills augment Jeck’s already lush flow. The best moments come when the turntablist breaks out some sub-aquatic bass figures that ballast Raisin’s delay-dampened drizzle of notes.

Bill Meyer

Niko Karlsson — Its Own Phantom (Feeding Tube)

Its Own Phantom by Niko Karlsson

Look out the window of your Finnish country cabin in the winter and your view is likely to be reduced to a few essentials. Grey sky, green trees, white snow — that’s about it. Its Own Phantom is an apt soundtrack for an afternoon spent gazing upon such a vista. None of its tracks are in a hurry, and each sweep of hand across strings (mostly guitar, sometimes banjo or sitar) unleashes a stream of melodious sound that’ll draw your mind into an imaginary space situated somewhere beyond the farthest visible fir. The term “acid folk” implies a potentially psychedelic experience generated by not entirely voltage dependent means. Let’s call this tape snowshoe folk; it may not induce hallucinatory states, but it has its own way of elevating the listener beyond the cold ground.

Bill Meyer

Eva Klesse Quartett — Songs Against Loneliness (Enja)

Songs against loneliness by Eva Klesse Quartett

Holiday season got you feeling isolated? Eva Klesse is here to help you feel better with Songs Against Loneliness. This new set of jazz originals by her quartet (joined occasionally by guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel) is soothing but not sleepy. Klesse, a drummer, composed five of the 13 tracks here, and the other members of the group, Evgeny Ring on sax, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and Philip Frischkorn on piano, contributed the rest of the compositions.

In practice, apart from the titles of the tracks (“Glory Glory Misfits,” “Der Eremit,” and so on), there is nothing ponderous (or overly perky) about the melodies and arrangements on display here. The quartet’s decade of playing and recording together (apart from Muellbauer, who replaces Robert Lucaciu this time around) is evident in its cohesiveness. Muthspiel and Klesse have worked together before, and his contributions here are fully integrated into the quartet’s sound, beginning with the poignant chords that open the title track “Minor Is What I Feel.” That track and some of the others seem carefully composed, while others, such as “Past, Tense,” are more improvisation. This cut builds slowly from a solo by Muellbauer to the full quartet. Klesse’s rattling percussion keeping things together without ever quite settling on a rhythm.

So take heart if you’re feeling left out and let these well-crafted tunes serve as your soundtrack for the journey back from loneliness. And if you’re already in the holiday spirit, Songs Against Loneliness will help keep you feeling warm and fuzzy.

Jim Marks

Mdou Moctar — Niger EP Vol. 2 (Matador)

Niger EP Vol. 2 by Mdou Moctar

This is the second in a series to collect early cassette tape recordings of the Niger-ian guitar phenomenon as he and his band travelled, often by bus, to informal gigs: weddings, rehearsals, house parties. The vibe is not much different from Moctar’s studio recordings, pacing torrid runs of guitar with homespun handclaps and hand drums. The difference comes in the ambient sounds. A motorcycle zooms away at the end of “Iblis Amghar,” birds chirp and people go on with the ordinary activities in their lives, even with such incendiary music going on around them. And, indeed, it is fire, this music, balancing locomotive percussion and hypnogogic trance, as on driving, dreaming “Ibitilan” or the searing blues of “Asditke Akal.” “Chimoumounim” sounds as if it comes in from a great distance, its groove approaching, then taking up a central place in our ears and hearts. Moctar’s grooves sound great in the studio, but maybe even better here in their natural space.

Jennifer Kelly

Mister Water Wet— Top Natural Drum (Soda Gong)

Top Natural Drum by Mister Water Wet

Top Natural Drum is Kansas City producer Iggy Romeu’s third album as Mister Water Wet. It’s also his first to arrive via a label other than West Mineral Ltd., the imprint founded by his buddy Brian Leeds, who most know as Huerco S. Although they’re connected, Romeu and Leeds have taken divergent paths. Romeu’s first two MWW outings were colorful and strange in comparison to Leeds’ grainy, monochromatic fog banks. He brews up his ambient tinctures with hints of jazz, hip hop and elements sourced from his Puerto Rican roots. Romeu is also careful to add subtle bits of the arcane to his concoctions, revealing himself to be a master crate digger. With Top Natural Drum, he drops the ambient veil to show off some rhythmic chops. The result is a series of head nodding beat-scapes sure to please those who spent the 1990s with their ears glued to the turntablism scene.

Bryon Hayes

The Modern Folk Trio Band — Always Be Recording (Island House)

IH-002 Always Be Recording by modern folk trio band

The Modern Folk Trio Band is actually a quintet, formed around J. Moss’s languid, liquid guitar, but including Austin Richards, Zach Barbery, Remi Lew and Trevor Schorey trading off on additional guitars, bass, drums and synthesizers. This cassette includes three tracks, two lengthy and one succinct, but all three fluid and luminous. “Diet Coke Extra Ice” winds placidly through slow, chugging lyricism, its lead guitar high and clear and full of light. “Slide Solo,” the short one, is just what its name implies, an interlude of intriguingly bent and haunted sounds, tinged by blues but not exactly boxed into it. And “Hot Jam,” the final cut, is not as viscerally physical as its title suggests, but rather a glistening, nodding, extended drone, grounded by the thud of drums but reaching always for an ethereal other-ness. Throughout, a loose improvisatory air presides. If you’re always recording, sometimes you get something good.

Jennifer Kelly

Woody Sullender — Music from Four Movements & Other Favorites (Woody Sullender)

Music from 'Four Movements' & Other Favorites by Woody Sullender

What’s the difference between listening and performing listening? If you have the time and credit, you could take up the matter while you pursue an MFA. Or you could go to www.fourmovements.woodysullender.com and download Four Movements, a video game space that “consists of several navigable environments where the virtual participant can perform listening” and live the difference. It is the work of an artist and musician who has studied under Maryanne Amacher and previously performed banjo music under the guise, Uncle Woody Sullender, and it provides the sort of disparate yet cohesive sound experience one might expect from a person whose creative map contains such aesthetic/methodological coordinates. Cantering banjo in just intonation coexists with techno beats, a Robert Hood cover sounds like a streamlined remembrance of Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano music, and moments arise when you might wonder if this guy’s spent some salon time with Horse Lords.

Bill Meyer

Tchornobog/Abyssal — Split LP (Lupus Lounge)

Tchornobog / Abyssal by Tchornobog

You get two epically scaled tracks of death metal-adjacent mayhem on this split LP. More bang for your buck? More yuck, for sure. Markov Soroka’s utterly whacko project Tchornobog is given the A side, and his 25-minute song “The Vomiting Choir” pummels and roils, blackened on its edges but still very much belly-down in layers of rancid muck (see that title…). There aren’t many opportunities to lift your face out of the sodden slurry and grab a breath — which is sort of impressive for a song so long, and by its halfway point, pretty oppressive, too. So, you may be grossed out by the bubbling, gurgling noises that become audible around the 11-minute mark, but at least the mix is a little less clogged up with clangor and crunch. Abyssal’s contribution, titled “Antechamber of the Wakeless Mind,” is only a minute shorter, but the song seems by contrast rather mannered, alternating slowly suppurating death-doom with long spells of churning, dissonant riffage that always feel consciously composed. The split is not a pleasant experience so much as it is an interesting experiment in differing modes of metal excess.

Jonathan Shaw

temp. — Taking notes (American Dreams)

Taking Notes by temp.

temp.’s Erica Mei Gamble is a producer, DJ and video archivist based in Chicago—and one half of the experimental electronic duo Dungeon Mother, but her Taking notes represents a significant step forward for the artist. It gathers music previously posted on Soundcloud into a chilly, cerebral and surprisingly cohesive statement; that is, it sounds very much like an album. It starts in wordless abstraction, the cut “Air” lofting translucent tones of synthesizer onto a pristine background. They pulse and flare like northern lights, unearthly also visceral. “Yah” finds the ghost in the machine as a human cry punctures glistening electric pulses; the cut is clean and a little spooky, like a quieter Shackleton. But it's “What’s Beyond,” performed with Gamble’s Dungeon Mother collaborator Sarah Leitten, that fully realizes the juncture between unreal, ominous sonics and fragile human consciousness. Leitten chants poetry against a seething mesh of synth tones, her words encompassing both natural and super-natural imagery (For example: “I’ll dance with the stars above/and I hold the moon in my hands/and I drink the sun with my eyes/and I am the darkness/I am the abyss.”) Later, with Emme Williams in “Trying to Climb,” Gamble stakes out a minimalist corner of the disco floor, with beats that glitch and blot and corrode and a half-remembered recorder melody tootling in the background.

Jennifer Kelly

Wild Pink — ILYSM (Royal Mountain)

ILYSM by Wild Pink

John Ross got the idea for his song, “Hold My Hand” while lying on an operating table, waiting for the anesthetic to knock him out before surgery. Ross, who is the main creative force behind Wild Pink, found out he had cancer mid-way through recording this fourth full-length. His uncertainties around this diagnosis, combined with his dogged insistence to finish anyway, define this album, whose bright, soft indie pop textures wrap around some very dark textures. Consider, for instance, “Hell Is Cold,” with its thumping rhythms, its half-focused glitch textures, its shimmering layers of piano. Ross sings just above a whisper, here and elsewhere, in a confiding tone that tickles the hairs inside your ear. Yet while the sonically, the song bounds and wafts, its message doesn’t. “I know I’ll be free when I die,” sings Ross, and the song ends abruptly like a life snuffed out. Likewise, the title track, aims at the kind of soccer stadium anthemic-ness that sends beach balls bobbling out over festival crowds. “I love you so much,” Ross intones over surging synths and pounding drums. Still, despite its ebullience, the cut has a vertiginous feel, as if the bottom is dropping out. Like many people facing difficulties, Ross reached out to friends for aid. The album has striking cameos from Julien Baker (“Hold My Hand”) and a multigenerational brace of guitarists, J. Mascis (who rips a sidewinder “See You Better Now”), Ryley Walker (breezily anthemic in “Simple Glyphs”) and Yasmin Williams (shimmering and gorgeous in “The Grass Widow in the Glass Window”). And yet, for all that, and despite the serious subject matter, the music mostly feels bland and oversaccharine, except for the sludgy, guitar-driven fury of “Sucking on Birdshot” and, at the end, “ICLYM” shuffling out like the Beta Band in shambolic triumph.

Jennifer Kelly

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