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capicola323427 · 12 days ago

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Clip Studio Paint Asset Store's Color Sets, what the fuck.

Selling color sets on the Clip Studio Paint Asset Store will NEVER make sense to me.

For some background. I have used Clip Studio Paint EX for YEARS. I have never paid for it. I will continue pirating it, and you CANNOT stop me.

This is unironically me frfr whenever I see a new version of Clip Studio Paint EX has been released. Now, how I pirate Clip Studio Paint EX still allows me to use the Clip Studio Asset site. If you don't know, the Clip Studio Asset site allows you to download and buy assets and materials that are made by other people. You do this by paying real money for Clip Studio's monopoly money points (Clippy and Gold). In Japan, if I recall correctly, the Gold paid to the creator of an asset can be transferred back into real money at a 30% fee to Clip Studio and the remaining 70% goes back to the creator. The assets on the store can range from 3D models, static materials, tone sets, framing and layer templates, auto actions and most importantly... brushes.

Now, all of the previous is fine. I'm willing to happily shell out actual Gold/Clippy for those assets because I know it's genuinely a work of task-intensive art to create things like brushes, materials or 3D models. It's truly amazing and they deserve to be paid for their work especially if those things will be used in art. Especially brushes. Getting a really, and I mean really nice brush makes all the difference in your drawing process and the look of your art! It's a work of magic that they're able to emulate so many traditional mediums digitally. That is why I'm willing to pay for brushes and the like

"Oh, so what? The stuff before was just two-faced waxing of poetics and the only thing stopping you from pirating brushes and assets is the fact that you can't?"

No, no, no. Not even close. Even if I somehow found a way to break a firewall for find a vulnerability in the Clip Studio Asset Site that would allow me to pirate the brushes... I still wouldn't do it. It feels too close and too personal to do it, because each brush and asset maker is just an individual artist. They're not a multi-billion dollar company or anything like that. No, they're individuals single handedly making assets for the artistic and efficient betterment of themselves and others and that shit takes time, understanding, and talent. Have you ever taken a look at the process to make a brush? To fiddle with brush properties? That shit is a PAIN. Materials too, all of those materials you see like screen tones and regular image materials are hand drawn so to me, it just seems scummy to do.

COLORS ON THE OTHER HAND??? Fuuuuck that. Now what I will never understand and find completely batshit as a concept to me and will never pay for. It is the selling of color sets. In fact, dare I say, it's completely idiotic from both sides. To me, the mere idea of selling a set of colors makes no sense and feels like no matter what you're going to lose. There's no winning when it comes to selling color palettes like this unless you're doing it commercially like Pantone. (And even I find Pantone kind of dumb even though I recognize what makes it so commercially viable.) Selling color sets on paint will NEVER make sense to me because if you're an artist, and relatively graphic-design savvy you can easily pirate them. To me, and this is just my opinion, the selling of colors is some Mr. O'Hare type of shit. I believe you're not paying for the colors themselves but the convenience of having colors sorted, organized, and made into a color palette for your ease of access. I just cannot see picking colors as having the same level of task-based intensity as making a material or asset! Yes, color theory is hard, it is very hard to learn but I don't see it as task intensive or hard as making a material or brush.

#clip studio paint #capithoughts

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rachthepoet · 10 months ago

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Keep Driving Analysis

Oh my, oh my. Keep Driving renders domesticity with vague tableaus, from the mundane to the utterly surreal, counting off on his fingers a new twist on the grocery list. Ahem, well, to me anyhow. It tacks together a collage, one representative of a dreamy relationship. Romantic, but showing simultaneous unsteadiness. It's a masterclass in delicate deception and extended metaphor, one of those songs I'd personally pull to illustrate just how beautiful Harry has a hold on his art lyrically and musically.

Maybe I'm a bit biased, I'll be so frank, due to the utilization of the stream-of-consciousness poetic style. The intentional lack of organization is such a willful move on the artist's part. A bold and unusual form to be brought into song lyrics due to how off-putting it can come off to the listener, but Harry takes that possibility into ownership and uses it to strengthen his work. The inclination to seek solace while in perpetual motion. Impeccably, may I add.

Here's a deep dive (or should I dare to say drive?) into Harry Styles' Keep Driving, from a poet.

Harry S. & Paul M. 🚗

Something that hit me on the first listen, and persistent in all the listens to follow, is the striking similarity between this song of Harry's and Paul McCartney's Junk. The Beatles and Paul himself have been ingrained in my livelihood since I was small, on car rides with my mother who took my conversion to Beatles fan very seriously. So, maybe it's too natural for me to find any association between the two, but I promise there's a direction to my madness. First, for context's sake, let's talk about McCartney's song, Junk.

Junk is a contemplative piece delving into themes of materialism, nostalgia, and the passage of time. The way I hear this song, it stands against the concept of "letting material things go" with a focus on keeping close to the heart old material things that hold the sentiments — but, parallel, it also opposes consumerism and frowns upon just how fast the economy wants people to live their lives. There's this encompassing of the transient nature of life itself, with a rattling list of items becoming metaphors. Acknowledging, though, the tendency for once-cherished items to turn forgotten & obsolete.

Keep Driving could be illustrating something similar, I suppose. Well, not suppose, I believe it, actually. The constant change of scenery in the song, very reminiscent of McCartney's, can illustrate this transient nature, and even a haunting sense of impermanence lingering underfoot. The narrator and subject drive a faulty car, passing memories and new technologies along the way. "Something old and something new", as Paul himself would say, and does so in Junk. Despite all this change, one thing is blatantly stated as permanent: I will always love you, a favorite part of the song for my hopeless romantic heart. Anywho. Despite the faults in the engine and the brake — all a metaphor, of course — this sense of adoration and devotion courses through his veins for his companion. And there's confidence that'll never change for him, despite the transient nature around them. Or, even, the transient nature that has seeped into their own dynamic, closing in. I find it quite romantic, this proclamation of love in the midst of it all, but I better save my yapping on that for now.

Lyric Pull Apart 🚗

[VERSE 1] Black-and-white film camera Yellow sunglasses Ash tray, swimming pool Hot wax, jump off the roof

The scenery has been set into motion, utilizing that writing technique I tried to sneak into your head before. Yes, stream-of-consciousness. Here, we're given a hint into the structure of the song lyrically: the verses will be chronicling and reminisicing on memories shared between the couple, while the chorus will be a constant that the song circles back to, a stark contrast between fantasy/nostalgia vs. reality. With this importance of the structure, each verse and further sections will be kept intact visually, like above. Okay, shall we get on with it?

Black-and-white film camera: This as the opening lyric is something so genius to me, as I'm accompanied by the visual of the clicking noses of an old camera before you go to watch back memories you've captured. Which, I believe, sets the tone for the rest of the verse — and then for the second verse and bridge to come — in terms of the whole piece's structure solidified. This also gives us a look into the two characters in our narrative I believe. The film camera leans into nostalgia, as both of them tend to lean heavily into memories. This feels like a bit of foreshadowing to the core conflict, the tendency to trick oneself into hiding in the pleasures of what has been instead of focusing on what is now.

Yellow sunglasses: I think there are two ways one could go with interpretations of this detail. Well, three, if you could that it could just be the color of the frame of the sunglasses he's noticed they always wear. So, yeah, correct that to three. The first perspective ties back to my ramble regarding memories and nostalgia. In films, yellow is used as a memory haze coloring, which further amplifies the conceptualization of memories being remembered.

The second perspective is how it very well could be a nod to the common cliche, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Yellow is a color commonly associated with happiness and buoyancy. The suggestion here, I think, could be that his vision of the relationship is more optimistic than realistic, and doesn't necessarily want to face how tings might be falling apart, even though there's already a small concern. That can so quickly turn into a big concern.

Both perspectives can coexist, and, truly, they help flesh out each other. And both are applicable to the core themes of the song, so, really, all of these thoughts can be true and working in cohesion.

Ash tray, swimming pool / Hot wax, jump off the roof: Bringing in the rest of the verse, and looking at the first verse altogether. To the listener, everything seems like a mishmash of words with no correlation to each other. But not to the two of them, and that integrates the smallest detail, but has the biggest implications attached. These are moments, summarizations, associations connected back to the speaker and his partner. Therefore, they're uninterpretable by anybody else. It radiates a sense of established intimacy, which, when we bring in the rift, it now holds so much more emphasis. A harder hit, because we get the taste of sweetness before the punch of the sour.

[1ST CHORUS] A small concern with how the engine sounds We held darkness in withheld clouds I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?"

He snaps back to the current day, the reality vs. the fantasy, thrown out of the yellow haze of nostalgia, face-to-face with the issue with the two of them, the quote-en-quote "engine" in this extending metaphor. The vehicle is symbolic of their relationship, therefore the engine is representative of the health of their bond. This is the metaphor one has to remember in order to envelop oneself in the true beauty of the song.

A small concern with how the engine sounds: The chord played in companionship with this line is a shock to the ear, pulling the listener out of the laidback groove. It amplifies the shift of the speaker, the reality vs. the fantasy. This is our first implication in the lyrics that something is off, something is in trouble. But the interest in the details is low — he aches to continue wading into the impressions left in his head, the memories he doesn't want to abandon to face reality, whether it's the relationship with this other or something that extends beyond.

A sprite of concern saying, "The engine's making a funny noise that could impact the car's health" evolves, then, to a sprite of concern saying, "There's this issue between us that could impact the relationship's health". At its very best, it will only make for a minor bump in the road. At its very worst, the damage will be far beyond repair.

We held darkness in withheld clouds: This is a bit of a juxtaposition here, but that in no way negates its value in extending the listener's understanding. It's a beautiful and poignant phrase and is one of my favorite lines ever penned at his hand. We've solidified that the speaker is aware of the troubling turbulence, now taking the form of rain clouds. He knew that storms were brewing under their noses, but decided to keep moving along in hopes they would go. He repressed them. Because he didn't just say clouds, but rather coupled it with the term withheld — to keep something back and not share it. And, a little detail in this line I find interesting is the use of past tense. We held darkness in withheld clouds, with the past tense informing that they were no longer in the situation. But he could be looking back with a tinge of regret, in this inner conflict with himself. Trying to work out if he should stick in his ways, in his unhealthy coping tactics, to continue his emotional coasting.

I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?": Is it avoidance? Is it acceptance? Complacency? Apathy? All of it? I'm partial to the last one. He knows something isn't quite right in the engine, but chose those yellow sunglasses of optimistic haze anyway. He wants to ignore the negative parts of their relationship like an inexperienced driver wants to ignore a weird engine sound they don't want to deal with. This common feeling that maybe things will be okay if they wait it out enough. But, still accompanied with I would ask, which I feels like has an undertone of uncertainty of his choice a bit, in the way the chorus ends.

All three of these lines working together makes the chorus intriguing and draws one in, even if kept in such a small package. There's an acknowledgment, concern, then avoidance masked as acceptance. It's such a great chorus, can you tell I love this chorus?

[VERSE 2] Maple syrup, coffee Pancakes for two Hash brown, egg yolk I will always love you

Full disclosure, this verse makes me blush and giggle whenever I hear it. His voice is the softest he has sounded in this piece, which makes sense because it's the softest moment in the song. It's so fairytale-esque and dreamy in the ear. Also, the simplicity of it is saccharine sweet, a beautiful love letter to domesticity that rocks juxtaposition in comparison to the first verse. A constant routine he's reciting because it means so much to him.

Maple syrup, coffee: What's on the table in mornings spent together...

Pancakes for two / Hash brown, egg yolk: Sharing breakfast and sleepy, still-waking-up conversations...

I will always love you: Breakfast, breakfast, and suddenly, a love declaration. It's arguably the most blatant he's been in a romantic song, not hidden behind flowery language or poetry. Though, it does have a poetic flow and intention, but I'll get into that soon. Anywho, through the verses we see him chronicling memories held onto, all the sweetness before the turbulence set in. The memories of mornings spent together in the sickeningly sweet domestic atmosphere, and those are the kind of things he wants to grasp onto as they hit these rough patches. But this line is a stark outlier and disrupts the flow a bit, demandin your attention to be drawn to it, and I believe strongly that it's all in smart design. A full senence of his feelings rather than the expection to continue chronicling what's tangibly in front of him.

In breaking the pattern, it feels like he just couldn't hold it in any longer, that those three little words had to come out then and there. Here are our memories [through the black-and-white film camera], and I loved you all during them. Let's keep driving, I love you still, love you now. Here's our favorite breakfast to have together, remember that? I want to love you for so long.

Before we move past this though, gotta poetry geek out for a moment. This verse is the only one of the song to follow a meter — 4/6, with four syllables in the first and third lines and six syllables in the second and fourth lines — and a rhyme — ABCB — which in turn creates a stable feel and flow to it. Though it's not a concrete rule, often, this is something used very purposeful in poetry and leans more coincidental when it comes to songwriting. But, no matter the medium, whenever a singular section of a piece is set to break the pattern of the rest, it draws attention, and that's more than likely intentional on the artist's part. And I don't underestimate Harry ever. So, I will be proceeding on with the assumption that it wasn't just coincidental.

With this understanding, the second verse becomes even sweeter as it implies stability, which means a lot in a verse that reads as a love letter/romanticization to the domestic life. Saying that those things will always remain stable, even with the metaphorical engine problems and the pent-up darkness in their withheld clouds. Among all, these are our constants I'll keep drawing us back to. The breakfast we like to share, and the fact that "I will always love you". The use of the word always adds a prominent subtext of confidence, even if it's through yellow colored sunglasses.

[2ND CHORUS] A small concern with how the engine sounds We held darkness in withheld clouds I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?" Should we just keep driving?

There's not much difference between this second chorus and the first rendition, except one thing. The repetition of the core conflict of the piece, and I find this significant because of the order of the song up until now. In the first verse, he thought about their exciting memories, ones that embodied fun but also fleeting. When facing the inner conflict the first time around in the first chorus, there's this admittance of a problem at hand, a reflection of how it was handled before, and then this wondering if the two should keep repressing the issue. The question still lingers as he's asking it, with an uncertainty of it being the next step to be taken, though it's presented as a substantial one.

In the second verse, we're also in a reminiscence stage, but this time with memories embodying the heart and a sense of routine, in turn, stability. Remembering love and domesticity in its wholesome glory, and a sense of permanence in its final line. Then, we're back to where we are currently, with the second rendition of the chorus, the inner conflict is revisited, and the core question is repeated without the I would ask preceding it. Which gives off a sense that he's made up his mind. He wishes to keep emotionally coasting with his partner, to pick the optimistic view, having remembered the constant feeling of love by the end of the second verse.

[BRIDGE] Passports in foot wells Kiss her and don't tells Wine glass, puff pass Tea with cyborgs Riot America Science and edibles Life hacks going viral in the bathroom Cocaine, side boob Choke her with a sea view Toothache, bad move Just act normal Moka pot Monday It's all good Hey, you

I call this the everything but the kitchen sink bridge. But, seriously, this bridge works so well in its chaos, and I'll explain. After the second verse, the natural assumption would be for the song to increase its intimacy and domesticity. But, rather, this bridge veers in the opposite direction, becoming less intimate, less domestic. This is all a part of their relationship, assumed, but it's not as specific to them as earlier in the song. And as we lose that intimacy, the grasp on the nostalgia over reality as they mesh into one another, the song's feel changes.

The writing style hasn't changed, but the intensity has. The music behind his voice swells, adding an underlying sense of urgency, trepidation, and apprehension when your focus goes to the instruments alone. Almost akin to a foot pressing on the gas, pushing the car engine too far, almost to the teetering line of complete engine failure. The chaotic nature of the bridge embodies the chaotic moments of the relationship. And, when the focus shifts to the chaos, the reality in opposition to the yellow-hazed memories he's been planting himself in, their bond suffers as felt in the rise of intensity of the instrumentals.

The bridge is significantly longer than the two verses before and is split into two chunks where he's allowed to take a breath. But, in no moment before the end does he stop to beg the question. He doesn't communicate as all this chaos finally rises to the surface, making it hard to ignore. I see this bridge as a moment of emotional release, as a result of the repression before, and it's only when everything is about to hit its peak that he leans back on how he's gotten through it before. Though unhealthy, he finally brings up the question again. The second he does, things return to the status quo -- the music mellows down to the same childlike glockenspiel, a laid-back sway the characters and listeners both fall back to. We have chosen the yellow sunglasses again, as the influx of chaos is too intense to face. We keep on driving, even if it's just a repression. We'll keep on emotional coasting.

[OUTRO] Should we just keep driving? Should we just keep driving? (Ooh) Should we just keep driving?

More repetition is added to the core conflict, to the core question, and the assumed conclusion is given: the choice is to keep on driving, to keep basking in the beauty of our bond instead of looking into the beasts, which will get us stuck in a rut I'm afraid we won't be able to find our way out of. By the outro, the question becomes superficial and redundant because he knows the answer, even before the question leaves his lips. He knows the cycle he's stuck in, the coping through delicate deception. He's stopped trying to bring up that the engine sounds a little off, but rather desperately tries to keep his quickening voice soft, creating a yellow haze in hopes that he won't have to face the chaos again.

I have an inkling this is one of those songs people either love or hate, but, if you couldn't tell by just how much I've been gushing, I love it so very much! It's a song that admits that life can be shitty at times, and that includes the relationships that were once filled with sugar-coated memories, but there's always a sense of permanence that gives the push to keep you driving. Finding the calm in the chaos but almost being chaos together, even in the darkest times. Though poetic, we aren't hiding behind poetry or prose or flowery language, but bringing in the rawness, the realness, the existing and beautiful, even at times our choices can vary into the bad. It's the shortest song on the album, but I don't think it needs to be longer, and think the more condensed feeling only aids. And, speaking from experience, Keep Driving is a whole Kodak memory-maker opportunity when screaming the song in the car. Windows down!

Thank you for reading, you're absolutely incredible! If there are any songs you'd like me to make an analysis of, please send your request to my inbox! along with any questions or insights you might have yourself!

#harry styles lyrics #harry styles lyric analysis #harry's house album #harry's house #keep driving #keep driving analysis #harry's house album analysis #lyric analysis #harry styles #keep driving lyric analysis #my posts #my analysis #opinion #commentary #discussion #theory #music #this song is so cute #I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU such a cutie pie

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someotherdog · 4 months ago

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I sincerely hope this is okay to ask~ do you have any tips or advice for creating characters? Your roster is so detailed and each character is so vastly different and unique, it's very inspiring :')

anon you're quite literally the sweetest human ever and i adore you so much ;-; i'd love to give you some advice!!! but i don't want seem like some self-aggrandizing asshole so i'm putting it under a readmore just in case anyone wants to scroll by it and not see me wax poetic about my own characters and writing process lmfao.

okay so again thank you for being so nice!!! to be honest, i don't have like a blueprint for character creation but this is my general advice that helps me out when it comes to making a new muse.

Be inspired by anything. now this is more of a roleplay thing, not necessarily writing like actual books to make money off of, but what i mean is do not be afraid to be like 'yeah anne rice (or whichever author you like) did this character pretty good, but i can do it better' or to be like 'hmm i like this trait of this character in a tv show, i want to write someone like them' and go from there. and when i say be inspired by anything, i do mean anything! tv shows, books, music, movies, real life events (as long as ur not a ghoul about it), etc. one of my favorite characters, saul weissberg, was partly inspired by julian sands' character in rose red, a stephen king miniseries from 2002 that i loved as a child that like five people have seen lol (specifically how any line of dialogue sounds like an innuendo/he had kind of a natural animalistic sexual swagger). some characters i have are partly inspired by people i actually know in real life, or of course inspired by myself and my own life. so sometimes you'll just want to do your own version of something, like how my desjardins family characters are my version of the show yellowstone or collie's my ripoff of my sweet audrina, or you'll just be like "hm i want a character that's kind of like lestat, but not french" and use that as a baseline/add on more later. sorry i keep using anne rice examples in this she's the only author i can think of rn lol

Don't be afraid to have two characters with similar backstories. like, don't psyche yourself out bc you're like "oh wait, this character i just came up is too much like a character i already have, i'll scrap them or get rid of the old one in order to have the new one." that's totally fine imo because now it's up to you to differentiate them and make them stand out from each other! for example, i have two characters that are drug addicts: hector and junior. now hector is a hedonistic narcissist that does drugs simply because he's trying to find the highest highs in life and he has no ability to care about others. junior is an addict because of a childhood tragedy by his older brother's hand that orphaned him and he tries to numb the pain of losing his entire family by using drugs. they both deal with the same affliction, but for entirely different reasons and they react differently to pretty much everything, so they might seem similar at first but they don't actually have much in common beyond their addiction struggles.

Sometimes the fc comes first, sometimes the concept does. by that i mean that sometimes i'll come up with an idea for a character (let's say... a character that's an artist that has prophetic dreams that inspires their art) and then i have to scramble for an fc that would fit their vibes, usually by just watching a new show or looking through gif pack blogs. other times, i'll have an fc i want to use... let's say... i want to make a margaret qualley character. so okay, what kind of storyline do i want to write with her? she's got lots of gifs where she looks scared/uncomfortable, so maybe she sees ghosts or something after a near-death experience. or she's quite tall, so maybe she's an inspiring runway model or something idk. a lot of characters i come up literally start with something simple as: i want to write about the satanic panic, so i'll make an oc that worships the devil in the bayous of louisiana (blair) or i want to make a character that's a final boy that survived a massacre à la wolf creek (benny). sometimes (or most times, lmao) i just see a face i think is pretty and want to use them, so i'll be like hmmm let's see what i can do with this face. your inspiration can be as simple or detailed as you like!

Rework characters at your own leisure. if you've got a character you just feel isn't working out, switch shit up! add to their storyline, change their storyline, drop them completely if you just aren't feeling a connection anymore. you can always change things back or un-retire a character, it's your blog!

Remember no one is going to care about your muses as much as you do. now that sounds a little cold but it's just like social anxiety in real life where no one is thinking about you as much as you're thinking about yourself. so what i mean is that does any random writer in the tag actually care about what my muse's exercise habits are or what allergies they have or if they have a bachelor's degree in communications? no, probably not!! and that's okay, because all the detail you put into a character is for you. i write detailed character sheets so i can remember than etan has asthma or that alice wears contacts or that frank has lived in detroit his whole life, not necessarily because i think my writing partner needs to know that information. it's for you to inform your writing of said character! but of course anyone that takes time out of their day to learn about your muses is a treasure and deserves three thousand smooches 🥰

alright i wrote enough bullshit up in here lol, so hopefully that helped you out nonnie!!! and i'm sorry if it didn't because i tend to write word salad ooc lmao sorry. if you want any more advice about anything, don't hesitate to ask <3

#* INBOX / answered .#indie rp #just one tag in case anyone is curious #drugs mention tw #addiction mention tw #this probably sounds so pretentious lmao but i am what i am okay!#you're a darling anon i love you

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randomvarious · 1 year ago

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Today's compilation:

Animal Liberation 1987 Industrial / Post-Punk / Synthpop / New Wave

God, this thing is just so fucking on-brand for PETA, folks. Back in 1987, the oft-ridiculed animal rights activist org teamed up with Chicago heavyweight indie label Wax Trax! Records in order to release this benefit comp that saw its royalties go straight into PETA's own coffers. And, as you might expect, like clockwork, it was made up almost entirely of pure, unadulterated cringe 🥴.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I'm definitely not here to evaluate or criticize the merits of animal liberation as an ideology itself in this post, but people have to understand that if you're trying to convert others to your own way of thinking, you're not likely to get through to them with ridiculously over-the-top, preachy propaganda that, in true PETA fashion, will leave your target scratching their head and wondering if all of this is actually just some elaborate ruse or a silly bit. What I think would've been a far more effective tack to take during this era that saw the concept of the benefit comp really flourish would've been to include maybe a song or two about animal rights, and then have the rest of the comp filled out with a bunch of other non-topical goodies.

But obviously, PETA and Wax Trax! didn't end up doing that here. What they chose to do instead was load up this album with almost nothing but ridiculous songs about animal rights and animal liberation; songs that certainly reflect Wax Trax!'s own love of self-aware irony and detachment as a bastion of the intersection between industrial, synthpop and punk and post-punk music, but are not likely to translate into swaying anyone to alter their own consumer habits in order to help lessen the plight of animals themselves. It really feels like just about everyone on here knows that what they're doing is already too on the nose to be taken seriously, and so they're just deciding to act accordingly. Like, if you were to make fun of animal rights activists through the art of musical comedy, you would probably just release this album pretty much as it already is.

The only track on here that would've kept you from using this CD as a coaster is the final one, "Assault & Battery," by Howard Jones, who wasn't even ever a Wax Trax! artist in the first place! This song, like the rest of them, is about animal rights too, but it's a bit more poetic and compelling in how it deals with the subject, rather than the vast majority of this slate, which takes the route of being very lyrically dogmatic and deliberately straight-forward to the point of being exasperatingly eyeroll-inducing 🙄. But with "Assault & Battery," a song that had previously appeared on Jones' 1985 album, Dream Into Action, he pairs his trained piano background with some synthpop and ends up delivering what is, by far, the most captivating and enjoyable song on this album.

So, an exceedingly bad and torturous release that seems par for the course when it comes to PETA's history of overly lame attempts at being provocative rather than actually being thought-provoking, but there is still one very good tune on here; it's just that Wax Trax! had to go outside of their own catalogue in order to obtain it 😆.

Highlights:

Howard Jones - "Assault & Battery"

#industrial #synthpop #synth pop #post punk #new wave #electronic #electronic music #music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music

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jonathankatwhatever · 5 months ago

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It’s 14 Nov 2024, and I don’t have much to say at this moment other than that I’ve been having a terrific time reaching understandings in and through you.

There’s something about Boundary in that, like maybe why I insist on the singular so much. I know that labels the concept, like in French it’s the difference between the and one of the.

But I feel the concept is there and there’s a fun stage where it fleshes out, where the figure not merely draws but colors and not merely colors but draws. I bought some more paint yesterday. Sort of maize and blue, LA Rams, bright and happy. I want to add some outright happiness to the walls. A kind that draws you in. I’m seeing it in blue spiraling into the wall and coming out, perhaps, in yellow, and because those make green then we make the artistic comment about the composition of reality, of life which we want to convey. The going out and the coming in touch each other to make the green of the heart which expresses in the green of verdant life.

Ah, yes, the green of the field divided into the blue and yellow. I never put that together. It’s clever. Yes, it could be poetic, or like an old time sportswriter waxing about the how the men in blue and yellow play with the natural power of the color of the grassy field of physical struggle.

Need to leave for a bit.

Before I stop though, the Boundary idea is singular because it is the abstraction of the gsProcess which makes a Boundary, and that is achieved through D-structure, meaning the way there is a shift from abstraction of an End to any End, any End at all, so from the uncountable conception of an End to a countable conception of an End, which is of course another example of the finite construction of gs within D-structure, within the finite construction of D3-4Space that we experience as reality, both subjective and objective. That last is meant to say physical and external to contrast with intangible and internal. As much as we wear our emotions on our sleeves, those are symptoms, are physical expressions of the intangible.

I no longer find it weird that we have figured this all out. It’s part of the process of taking things for granted, like I can drive to the gym and the grocery stores without assistance because I don’t question what I’m doing and relax with some assurance that I know the ways.

I keep almost saying a core idea, which is that this is by algorithm, by a running gsProcess which identifies the area, the Attachments and the Pathways, which shift focus so that which is at one End is intangible is at the other End tangible. That’s the creative process embodied in the division of the male into Ares and Hephaestus, the doer and the maker, and the Observer in this case is like in the Egyptian wall panels: that you connect through the lesson of the panel to the higher power at the other End, so that which comes to you from God can come to you. In the Greek case, it’s to what End? Meaning the impetus for The Iliad, the relationship of the Gods to the insides of human experience through the immortal killing machine’s discovery of his inner self. I see that fits exactly: he kills the killer of his companion and partner as though he’s killing himself, and that enables the shift over in perspective through Hector, whom he now sees as himself as well.

It’s the transition over or through the veil of death. That is done through Triangular. And that invokes Hexagonal, which invokes the algorithms of gsProcess. So yes, judgement happens. That finally connects me to that dream of the individual score cards, individual because they related potential across a variety of definitions to actual. I see now that the scores I saw were labels or composites for the explicit generation. That gets back to those prize questions, which goes to holes and Boundary.

Are there smooth solutions? Yes but you need to look closely in multiple places, more closely than you can look when things get really chaotic, so the issue is the labeling over where perspectives combine. I really need to leave but that’s an amazing answer. It’s labeling over composition, which means perspectives combining, which happens when there are too many to count over the counting period. Like can’t count a big waterfall when you’re near it. Same idea appears in jokes about 3 people misidentifying an elephant in the dark when each touches only one part.

We’re solving stuff left and right, up and down, boogaloo. Oh, I almost forgot: better answer to hairy ball, which is obviously composition, is that this example of that relies on the existence of blue and yellow, meaning hairy ball shows how that can be reduced to a point and why that is a point at infinity in religion, as in a chakra. You can also say we hear it in the silences of music or in the open space of any model of a sphere covered by a spiral, like an apple in a slicer.

Must go.

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serenafromoculis · 1 year ago

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One thing I find is not discussed in explicit enough terms, perhaps due to how abstract and subjective a subject it is, is the all-consuming force of art and the way it assimilates people into itself. Being an artist is like having eldritch knowledge bestowed upon you and I'm not even joking about this. The endless pursuit of creative exploration, of decyphering the abstract concepts floating in your mind and urging to be communicated is one that slowly absorbs more and more of your soul into itself until you stop doing it for long enough that it rots away on its own or until it takes over your entire life and defines you as a person every minute of your life, and still begs for more, unsatisfied. I'm not trying to wax poetic about this or anything, I mean literally that there's a line I'm crossing where every day I become physically less capable of incorporating artistic interpretation or my own form of idiosyncratic abstraction into the things I witness on my everyday life. I wouldn't call it dangerous, I think it is one of the most marvelous things to ever exist, but like, holy fuck does it consume everything. Being an artist is less of a choice and more of a natural result of events guiding you down a certain path and making you unable to do anything *but* art, fashioning your body into a medium for the manifestation of a bunch of weird-ass abstract shit coming from the deepest pits of the universe and eternally echoing in your mind.

It is possible to survive this, but not unaltered.

oculis

#artist

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theeverlastingshade · 1 year ago

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Favorite Albums of 2023

10. i’ve seen a way- Mandy, Indiana

2023 wasn’t a year lacking in compelling, well-realized debut LPs that hinted at artists with a completely fully-formed sound before a follow-up LP. Manchester’s Mandy, Indiana was one of those artists, and their debut LP, i’ve seen a way, was one of this year’s most satisfying surprises, with its potent blend of danceable beats, serrated guitars, menacing synths, and versatile vocals courtesy of Valentine Caulfield. Here, nimble rhythms collided with thick slabs of dissonance in a way that distilled the best of dance punk, no wave, post-punk, and noise music without sounding beholden to any single sensibility or stylistic presentation. Caulfield’s writing, sung entirely in French, was an evocative series of leftist insights made all the more potent juxtaposed against her band’s relentless sonic onslaught. It’s rare for music to achieve such an infectious, blood-pumping high with the visceral suggestion of violence emerging around every crevice in the mix, but M,I achieved just that with aplomb, making good on the tired “indie sleeze revival” narrative with music more assured and singular than pretty much anything to come from that dubious umbrella descriptor. Regardless of whether or not dance punk continues to sustain the momentum it achieved this year moving forward, M,I seem likely to continue growing into one of the most thrilling bands active today.

Essentials: “Pinking Shears”, “Peach Fuzz”, “Drag [Crashed]”

9. Everyone’s Crushed- Water From Your Eyes

Very few bands in 2023 experienced the kind of well-deserved payoff that Water From Your Eyes did. After years of honing their craft with increasingly strong records, playing over 90 shows this year, and garnering appreciation for their humor and talent through seemingly outlandish but impressively well-realized covers, the Brooklyn-based experimental pop duo that consists of vocalist Rachel Brown and multi-instrumentalist/producer Nate Amos seemed to have finally gotten their due. And in addition to the impressive aforementioned feats, (as well as the reason for the arrival of their due) WFYE also released their best record to date earlier this year with their perma-stoned art-pop opus, Everyone’s Crushed. On EC, the duo concocted a collection of 9 thrilling songs that veer from whiplash inducing sound collages (“Barley”), to superbly-textured drone compositions (“Open”) to string-laden ballads (“14”), to propulsive post-punk rippers (“Buy My Product”) with air-tight sequencing and finesse. Like many of the albums that I love from this year, EC walks a tightrope between being an impressive display of eclecticism and a disjointed mess, but to my ears it never quite veers into the latter category, and it’s that high-wire sense of ambition that makes it such a thrilling record. And Brown’s writing, which blends irreverence and absurdity with cutting capitalist critiques strewn over the top of their colorful cacophonies really elevates the album into a singular, sprawling fever dream.

Essentials: “Barley”, “True Life”, “Buy My Product”

8. Maps- billy woods and Kenny Segal

There’s been quite a bit of discussion surrounding 2023 being the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and there wasn’t a single release from this year that I listened to that really showcased the indisputable longevity of the form quite like Maps, a full-length collaboration between rapper billy woods and produce Kenny Segal. Maps is the second collaboration between woods and Segal, and it’s the strongest release that either of them have released to date. The conceit is essentially a concept album about life on the road as a touring musician, and the pair deliver an eclectic collection of songs that revel in the absurdity of this necessary component of their chosen careers. The largest draw of Maps is undoubtedly woods at the center of the storm, waxing poetic on everything from food to drugs to sound checks with wit and candor in his distinctly deadpan drawl. But Segal is no slouch, and his beats are in rich in color and personality, drawing from disarmingly (at least for woods) melodic pockets of soul, funk, and jazz for woods to wade in. Danny Brown, Quelle Chris, Elucid, Aesop Rock, and ShrapKnel each drop by to deliver a show stopping verse, and it’s a testament to the craft on display that neither host is ever upstaged. Maps is the byproduct of two artists in complete command of their respective crafts, and operating at the highest level with a hunger that belies their status as veterans.

Essentials: “Year Zero” ft. Danny Brown, “Babylon By Bus” ft. ShrapKnel, “Kenwood Speakers”

7. Dogsbody- Model/Actriz

In another year dominated by discourse on terminally chill, sonically inoffensive indie music, Dogsbody, the debut LP from Model/Actriz, arrived like a refreshing Molotov lobbed at your favorite music publication. The Brooklyn 4 piece specialize in a brooding, blood-stained fusion of dance punk, post-punk, industrial, and noise music with glints of chamber pop peaking through the din. The music is extremely well-realized, and frontman Cole Hayden’s horny yet harrowing vocal prowess imbues the music with a truly idiosyncratic, unsettling allure. Their early EPs were satisfying early forays into shaping what would become their claustrophobic yet danceable sound, but on Dogsbody everything crystallized into a sharp distillation of their disparate influences (namely the musical Cats and Throbbing Gristle). Here, brutal noise-flecked floor-starters custom-tailored for igniting mosh-pits like “Mosquito” and “Amaranth” collide with disarming, tastefully rendered ballads like “Sleepless” and “Divers” without disrupting the sequencing or compromising any shred of the momentum. The band’s consistency and commitment with respect to both ends of their sonic spectrum proved that there’s far more to them than simply being a nightmarish incarnation of Brooklyn’s next generation of “indie sleeze”, or any other fabricated projection more fixated on their image and what they represent than what they’ve proven remarkably adept at musically.

Essentials: “Sleepless”, “Divers”, “Moquito”

6. Raven- Kelela

Kelela’s music has been so consistently excellent from the jump that it’s been easy to take the quality of her releases for granted, but the monumental leap forward that she made on her 2nd LP, Raven, was just too immense to gloss over. Raven unfolds like a meditative spell across its 15 song, hour-long runtime, with immaculate sequencing that lends the experience the feel of an air-tight dj set even throughout its quieter corners. Kelela initially made a name for herself by flirting with the conventions of r&b and experimental electronic music until the boundaries felt non-existent, and on Raven she incorporates garage, drum & bass, and ambient music (with the assistance of an all-star team of producers that includes Kaytranada, LSDXOXO, Bambii, Junglepussy, and more) into the proceedings in a way that feels ambitious and daring but never quite exceeds her depth. Bookended by two gorgeous ambient totems (“Washed Away” and “Far Away”, respectively) that tastefully frame the record, Raven finds Kelela masterfully juggling floor-filling heaters like “Happy Ending” and “Contact” with subdued breathers like “Closure” and “Sorbet” that result in a dynamic, multi-faceted journey. And the writing, which touches on themes of self-realization, reinvention, and acceptance delivered with her versatile vocal approach that’s expressive but delivered with a smoky nonchalance, is her most gripping work to date. Kelela’s been a singular, inimitable artist for over a decade now, and Raven finds her continuing to find compelling new avenues for her voice to flourish in.

Essentials: “Raven”, “Happy Endings”, “Contact”

5. Radical Romantics- Fever Ray

With each passing year I continue to mourn the dissolution of The Knife, the beloved Swedish experimental electronic duo comprised of siblings Karin and Olof Dreijer, who made some of the most striking music, electronic or otherwise, of the 21st century so far, but thankfully Karin continues to make thrilling music under their Fever Ray solo moniker (and Olof’s solo work is also pretty solid, fwiw). Fever Ray’s 3rd LP, Radical Romantics, is their strongest solo record to date; one that achieves a near perfect balance between pop’s pleasure center and the adventurous allure of the avant-garde. The amount of range on display here is impressive at every turn. Early highlight “New Utensils” lurches to life with an infectious visceral intensity all too uncommon in synth-pop while single “Carbon Dioxide” is a floor-filling heater that's disarming in its immediacy. And while their now familiar thematic focus on carnal desires is thoroughly present, particularly on the swaggering early cut “Shiver”, and the show stopping centerpiece “Kandy”, RR finds Karin expanding their scope to tackle subjects like trans erasure (“What They Call Us”), the difficulty of dating as a middle-aged queer person (“Looking for a Ghost”), and what is easily the greatest helicopter parent bully revenge song ever penned (“Even It Out”). RR is just flex after flex of the most sublime synth-pop that I’ve heard all year fronted by the pied piper of goth-tinged off-kilter electronic music. We didn’t deserve the singularity of The Knife, and we sure as hell don’t deserve the singularity of Fever Ray.

Essentials: “Kandy”, “New Utensils”, “Carbon Dioxide”

4. This Stupid World- Yo La Tengo

It’s difficult to discuss Yo La Tengo without reference to the legendary indie rock institution’s nearly unparalleled longevity. The New Jersey based trio have been making good to great records since the mid-80s, and although what’s widely acknowledged as their “imperial phase” was from 1993-2000, they’ve still managed to release more great records in the years since that period than most bands manage to release halfway decent songs throughout their lifespan. The trio’s 17th LP, This Stupid World, happens to be one of their finest to date, and while generally praised as a “return to form”, which on some level it certainly is (the form in question being their penchant for pitch-perfect loud/soft dynamics, angelic vocal harmonies, generous use of distortion and feedback, and a general head in the clouds sort of dreaminess that almost threatens to belie the remarkable precision on display), but it’s not merely the sort of resting on past laurels at the highest possible level that that sort of designation tends to imply. The most satisfying development on TSW that pushes their sound into exciting new sonic realms for them is the pair of lengthy droning cuts in the form of the title track and “Miles Away” that close out the record. The band have flirted with drone before, but not quite like this, with the former sustaining distorted clusters of notes alongside a chugging floor tom/sleigh bell rhythm as they build steam through bludgeoning repetition and subtle tonal shifts while the latter takes a softer approach with a beating snare set against drummer Georgia Hubley’s ethereal croon and thick washes of white noise and negative space. They’re masterful exercises in restraint, and portend a few interesting directions the band could go next. And the prior 7 songs are just as compelling, whether we’re talking about the explosive stage setting opener (“Sinatra Drive Breakdown”), the lilting breather (“Aselestine”), the hypnotic, bass-led march (“Tonight’s Episode”) or anything else here. YLT’s consistency as indie rock lifers content to continue honing their craft, devoid of trend or clout chasing, remains as inspiring as ever.

Essentials: “Sinatra Drive Breakdown”, “This Stupid World” “Until It Happens”

3. the whaler- Home Is Where

This is probably the most underrated record that I’ve written about all year, which is a damn shame for several different reasons, but perhaps most of all because it’s a record with an appeal far beyond the fifth-wave emo wave that birthed it. Home Is Where are unabashedly emo, by their own admission, and they strike a sweet spot sonically, lyrically, and thematically between 4th wave emo legends, The Hotelier, and cult favorite Neutral Milk Hotel (which HIW have also acknowledged, albeit jokingly). And while there’s a lot of truth to through lines like raw, unvarnished vulnerability, surrealism, urgency, and ample use of singing saw that makes that parallel feel particularly apt, HIW are very much on their own trip. Their classic 2021 debut LP, I Became Birds, still feels like a lightning in a bottle 18 minute leftist masterwork that seamlessly blended emo, punk, hardcore, and folk into an idiosyncratic statement of purpose with more personality and purpose than the vast majority of their peers, emo or otherwise. The band’s follow-up, the whaler, doubles down on the promise of IBB with a more sobering tone and an even further refined sonic palette. The band’s eclecticism is still on display, but the ingenuity is even more pronounced, with whiplash inducing mid-song stylistic shifts such as the folk foundations of “lily pad puplis” slowly transitioning into a hardcore breakdown, or the tape loop sound collage of opener “skin meadow” bleeding into an anthemic emo rollercoaster, that are inventive and thrilling in their disregard for convention. Like on IBB, frontwoman Brandon MacDonald uses sublime surreal imagery in service of leftist sentiments, but her critiques are sharper and more colorful this time around. There’s a tremendous deal to unpack and admire about the 10 dynamic songs on tw, and the generous melodicism coursing throughout it all makes it all too easy to get lost in. Irreverent, earnest, adventurous, and flush with unabashed integrity, tw exemplifies so much of what I find exciting about in art, and cements HIW as one of the most exciting bands active.

Essentials: “floral organs”, “everyday feels like 9/11”, “skin meadow”

2. After the Magic- Parannoul

Shoegaze is in a tremendously exciting place right now. It’s undergone a completely unprecedented creative resurgence throughout the 2020s as arty projects have emerged from disparate scenes around the world putting their own spin on the genre through the increasingly low barrier to entry afforded by modern technology, and this coupled with the bizarre traction that many of its new practitioners have experienced on Tik-Tok this year has given it a curiously heightened level of visibility. Which makes it all the more fitting that one of, if not the most exciting shoegaze album of the decade so far is After the Magic, the 3rd LP courtesy of the anonymous, South Korea-based solo bedroom shoegaze act, Parannoul. After toiling away in obscurity for years, Parannoul had an unprecedented level of visibility with their 2021 breakthrough LP, To See the Next Part of the Dream, which lit up the blogs due to its adventurous strain of entirely MIDI-generated lo-fi, emo-leaning shoegaze, and ATM ups the ante of its predecessor on every conceivable level. The sound of ATM is still emo-leaning shoegaze, but the scale of the music here is simply enormous, incorporating elements of disparate genres like K-pop and hardcore into the fold of their stadium-sized shoegaze without diluting their approach. Early highlight “Arrival” erupts into a furious Siamese Dream style suite of blown-out guitars that feels like it could level buildings, while “Parade” unfolds like a disarmingly tender trojan horse imbued with gorgeous vocal harmonies juxtaposed against field recordings of fireworks and children playing, and it’s a testament to the sprawling ambition throughout that both pieces feel right at home and don’t even remotely disrupt the flow of the record. Naturally, the words are sung entirely in Korean, but you don’t need to understand a word of Korean to understand the emotional thrust of the music. On ATM, the music itself is more expressive than any words could ever really convey. Parannoul remains a rare talent who fully understands music’s expressive sonic potential, and thoroughly taps into that to distill worlds of feeling into their work.

Essentials: “We Shine at Night”, “Blossom”, “Arrival”

1. Rat Saw God- Wednesday

In my experience, it’s rare for an album that was hyped beyond reasonable expectation to actually live up to the hype, and maybe over deliver on the anticipated excitement, but Wednesday achieved just that with their fifth LP, Rat Saw God. The Ashville-based 5 piece have been making great music that sits at the intersection of shoegaze, lo-fi indie rock, grunge, and alt-county for a handful of years now, but RSG feels like the culmination of their sensibilities, and the album they've been working towards throughout their brief but substantial career so far. The music on RSG consists of bleak, bad-vibe bummer jams that are considerably more polished than Wednesday’s music has ever sounded, but the curdled undercurrent of observations accumulated through growing up in the late-capitalist American south still unfurl with the same harrowing disposition. The music roars to life with vivacious licks courtesy of guitarist MJ Lenderman on songs like opener “Hot Rotten Grass Smell” and early epic “Bull Believer”, but it’s equally arresting in the album’s moments of fleeting tranquility like on “Formula One” and “What’s So Funny”. The ensemble performances throughout RSG captivate at every turn, and it’s the scrappy execution that imbues the music with so much charm and personality which help the morose details go down smoother. References to Narcan, desolation, and crumbling infrastructure are ample, but so is the band’s generous melodicism and infectious communal spirit of perseverance against the odds. Frontwoman Karly Hartzman’s eye for detail is the album’s greatest appeal, and her storytelling on RSG, which touches on everything from a miserable New Year’s Eve party replete with Mortal Kombat and nosebleeds on the aforementioned single “Bull Believer” to domestic abuse that culminates in a drug bust on late album highlight “Quarry”, and so much more throughout these 10 immensely evocative songs. Wednesday exemplify the unbridled catharsis of the best art that any medium has to offer, and while the vignettes throughout RSG are often hard to stomach upon close inspection, they’re also more rewarding and richly rendered than anything else that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to this year.

Essentials: “Bull Believer”, “Quarry”, “Bath County”

#wednesday #parannoul #home is where #yo la tengo #fever ray #kelela #model/actriz #billy woods #kenny segal #water from your eyes #mandy indiana

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airadam · 1 year ago

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Episode 175 : You're Forced To Chill

"Speaking to the people that matter, with my mind."

- Grap

While a lot of December up this way has been surprisingly mild, but there was an absolutely vicious period - was lucky that the heating in the house only died after the worst had passed. Still, it's fixed now, so I didn't freeze to death putting this episode together! As we draw towards the end of the year, the themes here might be wintery and seasonal, but the tunes are heat :)

As promised, here's the link for WORKINONIT - definitely support this collective (and the venue that hosts the monthly events!) if you want to support grassroots talent 💯

Twitch : @airadam13

Mastodon : @[email protected]

Show/Stream Schedule : events.airadam.com

Playlist/Notes

Median : Median Alleviates The Drama

A deep cut from the heyday of the Justus League, with 9th Wonder (of course) chopping it up on this breezy beat for his Winston-Salem, North Carolina, compatriot to get busy on. You may not know Median as he only recorded two albums, his last in 2011, but he's a grounded yet imaginative writer who is well worth your listening time. Of interest to many who do take the time to dig into his history will be "Brenda's Baby" from the 2007 "Median's Relief" LP, his sequel to 2Pac's famous "Brenda's Got A Baby".

Soul Supreme : Mood Swings

Big shout to Jim Bane of Eastern Bloc who gifted me the "Poetic Justice" LP on wax for my birthday earlier this year! Amsterdam's Soul Supreme has been giving us quality music for a long while now, but in recent times has been locked in what sounds like an awful legal dispute with a record company and another producer. Despite still being in the thick of it, he delivers his commentary in the form of instrumental music on this album, which is even clearer when you read the track titles. The interplay between the horns and his keyboard work are the highlight on this particular track, but for the full effect, sit down and listen to the whole album end-to-end.

Cookin Soul : Kamaal Xmas Time

Cookin Soul usually comes out with a special Xmas release each year, mixing up an artist you know well with seasonal sample flips. This track comes from the 2002 "A Tribe Called Xmas" collection, and takes Q-Tip's verse from "Mind Power" and adds on a few more lines I can't place before going full Christmas - but keeping that boom-bap!

Noveliss & Mega Ran : Memory Card

One of the OGs of leaning fully into video game culture in Hip-Hop alongside the Clear Soul Forces veteran and manga writer Noveliss? You know the references are going to be fire. Hir-O provides the beat, and both MCs bring it as they centre the concept of the memory card (ask your parents if you don't know) on this standout from their "Maverick Hunters" album.

Bounty Killer, A.R.P, Curly, and Tulokk : Evils Of Your Mind (Edited)

Devil on one shoulder, devil on the other? Almost like a dancehall version of Eminem's "Guilty Conscience" (especially with that second voice), this is a big single from 2001 on the "Heavyweight" riddim that also appears on the 2002 "Ghetto Dictionary : The Mystery" album as "Evils Of The Mind". 2002 was a busy time for the Warlord, who also dropped "Ghetto Dictionary : The Art Of War" that same year.

Kuartz & Vybz Kartel : Clarks (Kuartz Real Badman Remix)

If you're a DJ, especially in a city like Manchester where crowds react to big sounds, get "Hybrid Dialects" just for this monster! A local producer with worldwide rep and reach, Kuartz has done the home scene proud and on his latest release, the industrial, digital vibes come through loud and clear. The cold, wintery feel on the intro make it a perfect inclusion this dark month. Kuartz bends and effects the voice of Vybz Kartel as much as any other instrument on the track, making for a sound system killer!

Da Beatminerz & KRS-ONE : Seckle

KRS was one of the first to really bring that reggae/dancehall flavour into the Hip-Hop arena, and Da Beatminerz have had that as an element of their style since they debuted on the production for the first Black Moon album, so this is a union you know is going to come correct. Slow and low single, with the soundclash samples at the front, back, and in the hook, this loping, skipping beat allows Kris to come through clear as a bell on the mic, still, after almost forty years of recording. Continue to enjoy new artists, but support the veterans too!

NYG'z ft. Rave : Itz On

Rugged and triumphant in equal measure, this was the big opening track on the first and so far only LP from NYG'z, "Welcome 2 G-Dom" from 2007. Guest emcee Rave (sometimes credited elsewhere as R.A.V.E Roulette) features on six of the album's fifteen tracks, which definitely puts him in "honourary group member" territory! Production is handled by DJ Premier, who also released this album on his own label Year Round Records - truly backing this crew in every way possible. PS - the apostrophe setup in the artist name and song title are verbatim from the release, don't come after me :)

Paul Wall & Termanology : Talk About It

As I say, you might not think that Houston's Paul Wall and Lawrence (Massachussetts) native Termanology are the most obvious MC pairing in the world, but my goodness, they fit togther perfectly. They already gave us one excellent LP in "Start 2 Finish" and now they're back with "Start, Finish, Repeat". It might just be in my head, but it feels like they each lean towards each other - Paul Wall with slightly more wordplay in his flow, and Termanology dialling back on the trademark syllable barrages he can unleash at any time. Large Professor bases his production around a great soul sample I added to my own collection this year, spices up the hook with some cuts.

Curren$y ft. Mac Miller : Money Shot

I've always been iffy about including this one from 2014's "More Saturday Night Car Tunes" - partly because the sound quality isn't great, but also because if I'm honest, I don't think the late Mac Miller's verse on this is his finest work. That said, I know many people online disagree with me and love it! Curren$y is solid here, but for me, the real star is the production by Sap - taking a great late 70s slow jam sample, and speeding it up (which speaks to how slow the original is), layering a suitably straightforward drum track, and then trying to turn your speakers inside out in the closing seconds! I blend out during that segment, just in case...don't want any of you coming after me for damages 😄

Luxury Elite : Parkway

A bit of vaporwave for this interlude, pure 80s vibes on this slow, moody instrumental from the "World Class" album. Luxury Elite digs out some of those really obscure 80s samples for her work, and it's all about just vibing out to the loops and little change-ups.

Mega Ran, Young RJ, Erick Roberson, Abstract Orchestra, Daru Jones, Marcel P. Black : Black Is Beautiful

Apologies to Marcel P. Black - the digital file I read the artist information on at first didn't have his name, but he kills it on the third verse and rightly deserves major respect here. This is a gorgeous and poetic track about Blackness from the 2020 "2 Hands Up" album by Young RJ and Mega Ran, which is not just (or even mostly) about police violence, but a varied and well-rounded LP. Young RJ produces this one in not just the sense of getting on a beat machine, but pulling in Leeds crew Abstract Orchestra, frequent collaborators with the Detroit scene, plus the Grammy-winning drummer Daru Jones and shaping the union into this exceptional song.

Amp Fiddler : Eye To Eye

I first heard this track on a Qool DJ Marv mix, and it was years before I could tell you who the artist was! It turned out to be just one facet of the talents of the brilliant Joseph "Amp" Fiddler, who featured this track on his debut album "Waltz Of A Ghetto Fly". It's a classic piece of funky soul, which could easily have been written twenty-plus years earlier, but had all the quality and polish to stand out in the early 21st century. RIP Amp.

InI : Mind Over Matter

Classic, if relatively little-known heat from the 90s. This Mount Vernon crew had their debut "Center of Attention", from which this is taken, shelved due to friction with the label and legal issues around ownership, but it was heavily bootlegged before eventually surfacing officially in 2003. Solid rhymes here from Grap Luva, Rob-O, and Ras G, atop some vintage SP-1200 action courtesy of Pete Rock, who produced the whole project.

Platinum Pied Pipers ft. Invincible : Detroit Winter

After that brief trip to New York State, we close out the section by bringing it right back to Detroit, this time to the PPP duo (Waajeed and Saadiq) for a track from their debut album, 2005's "Triple P". MC Invincible of the Anomalies crew kills it on the mic with their almost monotone flow, describing the bitter coldness of Detroit in detail, making it a suitable selection for this time of year. Musically, the piano riff is the standout element, but if you listen really closely, you can also hear a famous rhythm sample in the background quietly holding it down too!

[EZ Elpee] Capone-N-Noreaga : Calm Down (Instrumental)

"Calm Down" never made it onto the classic C-N-N debut album "The War Report" due to sample clearance problems - hey, I guess Bette Midler wasn't down with the Queensbridge thug life - but you might get lucky and find it on a promo 12" somewhere. If you're really lucky though, you might find an instrumental LP of tracks from the LP, including a couple that, like this one, didn't end up on the final release. Nice beat by EZ Elpee, just a shame it didn't get the shine it deserved!

Souls Of Mischief : A Name I Call Myself

I really didn't know what to end this episode with, but settled on a track from a much-loved LP which turned thirty this year. This was a deep album cut, produced by Del The Funkee Homosapien, with some really clever sample combinations underneath the cheerfully-rhymed X-rated lyrics! It's great to see how Souls' music has continued to reflect their journeys through life, from this during their teenage years through to the present day - and by the way, they were pioneers in using the internet to promote their music.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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ottawavalleycreations · 1 year ago

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What's in Progress

Ah, the holidays. The Season of Giving, and a time for spending time with family, friends, and all manner of loved one. One could wax and wane poetic about the various high holy days of the holidays, or speak to more secular approaches to the season, or even the outright marketable approach regarding the consumerist society in which we find ourselves bombarded with the pressures of sales and selling. While there is much I myself could say about this season and much more that could be complained about regarding the aforementioned market pressures from every conceivable angle to either buy or sell or provide the best "deals" on the latest hot ticket item or otherwise fad-tastic happening, I'd like to take a moment to talk but briefly about the things I am working on, or otherwise procrastinating working on by writing this blog post.

I am in the process of writing a Journal Entry for the membership site over at Ottawa Valley Creations and have been continuing to repost The Venture Series, the latest page having been just uploaded today. The in-progress Journal Entry is one that I have been wanting to write for some time and is actually in no way related to the holidays, though there is another too that will be written that may be more thematically appropriate-- at least in the interest of dates and specific days. The entry currently in progress is in regards to a certain ancient world deity that I have been tracking through various sources and papyri to render but a small snapshot look at in my own words and writing, so too, at the people that may have worshipped this deity in question.

Another thing I've been working on for Ottawa Valley Creations is getting together more items to take literal snapshots of so to post them within the store. I am also in the process of developing several paintings of a large size and heavier detail of others that have already been listed, though in all honesty, this is entirely dependant upon overcoming the frustrations, depression, and melancholy which seems to afflict many this time of year with the Vitamin D deficiencies prominent in countries of the Northern Hemisphere this time of year. This being said, however, there is also a smaller project painting that I am very nearly finished with which will be being posted and available both as the original canvas and as prints, this painting being a long time in the works and of the Angel Raphael, the young Tobias, and his bride, Sara. Just a sweet little portrait attempt based upon the apocryphal story, laced of course, with my usual bunches of abstract symbolism.

There is plenty in the works, as one can see, and aside from the seemingly ever wilding turmoil that is the battlefield of attempting to achieve mental wellness, it is business as usual over here with Ottawa Valley Creations. I personally cannot in good faith make my time with the holidays a completely secular and capitalist greed machinist attempt to swindle the masses with promises of sales and discounts to make up for the black hole of lacking purpose except but to consume and purchase without thought or concept of ethics and morality; but we are still here, still live, and still avidly working on new art and getting old art posted for the enjoyment of viewing. And perhaps if I can plant the seed of supporting an artist, and historian, who is trying very hard not to be too cynical about too many things, then all the better.

I appreciate any that have taken the time to read this and thank any and all for their support. My thanks, and well wishes, always,

M.R.Reid

Ottawa Valley Creations

#artists on tumblr #blogging #blog #ottawa valley creations

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charcadett · 2 years ago

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How about polly Brassius and Hassel with an s/o who is also an artist and an animator?

Oh YES! Poly headcanons with two of my favs, hell yeah. I wrote this as a poly triad, as in you’re all three daying each other. I hope that’s okay!

Poly Hassel and Brassius With Artist S/O

- It’s never dull with these two as your boyfriends, especially if you’re a fellow artist. Hassel wears his heart on his sleeve with a tendency to wax poetic. Brassius is eccentric and prone to dramatics, and their shared passion for art makes them a force to be reckoned with. Add you into that equation, and silence is a lost and forgotten concept. If you’re not lending an ear, you’re rambling yourself, Hassel and Brassius hanging on your every word.

- They are your biggest supporters. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You could be working on a new project, an old project, or simply taking a break; Hassel and Brassius are cheering you on every step of the way. Whenever Hassel sees you, he will excitedly ask how your newest animation is coming along. Brassius is similarly supportive, although he tends to be absorbed in his own work. They both shower you with praise in affection whenever they see you. You’re practically drowning in it.

- Your name will get shortened into a nickname. Accept it. It’s inevitable. And also very likely to be cheesy. In regards to pet names, though, Brassius calls you “my muse,” “beloved,” and “my heart.” Hassel tends to go old-fashioned with “dear” and “love.”

- Communication is very important in your relationship. Where Brassius may take a bit of coaxing – he finds being vulnerable, especially regarding his personal struggles, an embarrassing endeavor – Hassel insists upon it. Once every few weeks, the three of you will sit down and discuss your relationship. What’s going well, what is the cause of some problems, and what can be done to help. Considering there aren’t usually any major issues, discussion tends to dissolve into date planning within fifteen minutes.

- Hassel and Brassius don’t currently live together. Not for lack of wanting to. It simply makes the most sense regarding their jobs. Hassel lives in Mesagoza to be close to the league and the school. Brassius lives in Artazon to be close to the Gym. You either switch between their houses or live separately. It’s up to you. Either way, be prepared for surprise visits from the two, together or separate. Despite their busy schedules, the three of you manage to spend a significant amount of time together, from visiting Hassel during his free period at the academy to cheering Brassius on during his Gym Battles.

- Sometimes, members of Hassel’s family come to visit. More specifically, a certain stubborn cousin. Brassius has slammed the door in their face several times. If Hassel’s around, he at least tries to be cordial, otherwise, they are nothing but a pest to him, and he treats them as such. You have never seen Hassel as angry as he was when you and Brassius finally told him about his cousin’s new and invasive tactic. While they never bother you again, you sometimes see them exiting the school in a huff. They take great pains to avoid you.

- As frustrating as this may be, some benefits come with Hassel’s family. Such as his spite-fueled use of the ancient dragon clan bank account.

- “Both of my muses in one place! How lucky a man am I?” Brassius says this whenever you and Hassel are in the same room. Every single time. Without fail. If there ever comes a day he doesn’t, take him to the hospital.

#pokemon x reader #pokemon headcanons #elite four hassel x reader #gym leader brassius x reader #pokemon imagines #i am polyamorous so this was so fun and so slay to do #i love these old guys sm

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bondsmagii · 2 years ago

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Man if we are talking about bad takes I have one for you: this whole eat the rich movement

And you know why? People can't discern who the rich are!! Like they are coming after doctors and lawyers and artists, people who made their money working, instead of focusing in the people who made their money by exploiting people like businessmen which is the whole point and my god people are goddamn stupid like the whole point of eating the rich was to go against exploitation "boss makes a dollar I make a dime" and like thats 99% of rich people yet Tumblr users see a doctor with a vacation house and lose it completely like my dude having money is not the problem, the problem is when people have money because they took it from you!! Anyways the whole thing has become such a joke and if I see one more person talking about celebrities when they say eat the rich imma legit lose it because taylor swift might be rich but she's rich bc you bought her stuff my guy not because she made you work and took about all of your profit

So yeah a lot of bad takes on this site that come from good places but have zero critical thinking behind it

people not being able to identify the Actual Rich terrifies me. like, they do realise that they're reinventing the concept of kulaks, right?

to an extent, I can get the idea of people being pissed off at very rich doctors in countries like America, where the healthcare system is there for profit. that's exploitative and fucked up, and while I understand that not all doctors are in it for the money, granted some of them are and they are using an exploitative system to get it -- but the real issue there is the healthcare system, rather than individual doctors. (in the UK, the idea of a rich healthcare professional is actually laughable, unless they're a private practise, which isn't as loaded here as you choose to go private and pay money; if you don't, you still have access to healthcare.)

as for everything else, especially when it comes to the arts... shit, man. it worries me, how so many people on this website will wax poetic about how art is worth so much, and artists are angels, etc, but boy howdy they sure don't want to pay artists. people are out there thinking the price of a book is exploitative because it prices out poorer people, without considering the fact that the whole £8.99 doesn't go to the author's pocket -- it pays the author, and everyone who marketed the book, and who edited it, and who did the art for the cover, and who bound the book, and who organised its distribution, etc. it's the same with singers, or movie stars, as well as fundamentally forgetting the fact that you consensually part with your money in order to have something you enjoy. it's not the same as having your wages literally stolen from you by a billionaire.

generally speaking, these people make their money because they're good at something. enough people think that Taylor Swift is good that they've bought her songs and made her rich. enough people like Stephen King's books that they've bought them and made him rich. movie stars are rich because they make good movies and people want to see them. they work. and none of these jobs are easy! they're hard fucking work, and a lot of people are involved in the finished product and they all need to be paid. super-rich billionaires and multi-millionaires, who hoard wealth and underpay employees and cut corners, are usually only talented at making money, and this is because they're despicable human beings. they also have more wealth than they could ever use even in a dozen lifetimes, and they remove it completely from the economy, and they use its influence to seek power and undercut laws and generally make the world a worse place, and they're in a whole different league. the kind of wealth we're seeing right now is supervillain levels of rich.

when there's issues like that, I really don't give a shit if someone who did 12 years of college and residency and who's worked 12 hour days minimum for 25 years has a vacation house. we'll discuss the ethics of multiple houses in a housing crisis when we've dealt with the bigger problems, like the multi-billionaire born to a blood emerald empire hoarding insane amounts of cash and contributing precisely nothing to society, for example. a large chunk of society's problems could be solved or at least on their way to being improved if we didn't have hoarding billionaires and starvation wages.

#anon #asks

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fantodsdhrit · 3 years ago

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high cirrus clouds give elon muskian sunsets donkey skin maya pinning eel metamorphosis like bourgeoisie without thought taking phone pictures of art installations or screeching gervaisian humour in vernaculars skittish as phony fantasy caesar's chicken salad prince in crimson shifting from rougher theocratic daddy to smoother homemaker free will delusional patriarchy jungle cottage exit to helicopter castle oedipal complex sublimation via lilac fairy shrinkflation currency depreciation atomic consumer ad nauseam one dimensional macro erotica you look but never observe stop lending ants typewriters there's already surfeit of poetic blunders eye tree boulevard boutiques commodity more than beauticians black lipstick irises crytocurrencies crash not that much you get pubes waxed or desire less rapacious world for harappan hygiene ritual bathing still end up with room blues techno utopia dance around elephants listless in coexist wood and iron two hundred the artist depicts opposite tables with horse heads thick serrated gear rod dissecting in half another manifestation in brass two fifty aspiration brass hundred branch humungous weightless capital flight volatile foreign portfolio investment and concepts like value immaterial crushed under social neon signs

#poetry #dhrit #sculpture

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lihikainanea · 3 years ago

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I read in the interview that Bill had a strict training schedule for Boy Kills World (before he left Sweden for Cape Town) that resulted in an injured leg and that for the photoshoot he was limping. Can you do a little story where Bill comes home limping from the injury and maybe he tries to hide it from Tiger because he knew she’d worry and say he’s working himself too hard? Or something similar?

I'm glad I'm not the only one that had this delicious thought. I wonder what part of his leg it was? The most common injury is to the thigh. Which is, ahem, really a beautiful thought isn't it?

But wait, let's back up a second here. When I read the summary of Boy Kills World I knew Bill would be undergoing some serious training if he had a hope of making this character look realistic. And I've waxed poetic before about my sheer desire to like...FIGHT Bill. Or at least, teach him how to fight. Because he has the potential to be a beautiful fighter, and he has so much to his advantage--not his height, actually, that's a disadvantage--but his long, long limbs. His litheness. With a little flexibility, he could be deadly.

And I am saddened that I don't know more Hollywood martial artists because I would love to be a fly on the wall.

But anyway, Bill has a lot of training to do. And I love this concept that like...tiger gets into it. That's so cute, isn't it? Tiger is all in for her Big Dude. Not on the training aspect, but on what he needs to bulk and sustain for the role. Once he gets his training plan, tiger asks if she can tag along to his meeting with his nutritionist--and Bill smiles a little bit when tiger sits down, all business, and actually takes out a notepad.

And the nutritionist is going over grams and proteins and when he needs to eat what and tiger is taking notes and Bill's heart could just explode--and when she starts actually asking questions, he's done for. She's asking about oils and fats and how she can cook his food and what he's not allowed, she's asking about caloric intake and how to calculate it, she's asking about protein sources and carbohydrate sources and flavours that he can have without adding too much bad calories.

Once they're back in the car Bill reaches over and grabs her chin softly, pulling her in for a kiss.

"You don't have to do this kid," he murmurs, "You don't have to do anything for me."

"I want to," she smiles, "This is going to be intense for you, bud. If there's something I can do to help lessen it, to make it a bit easier--I want to do it."

A shipment comes in the next day--two huge boxes--and it's full of protein powders and muscle builders and Bill eyes it wearily as tiger unpacks it all.

"You won't even realize you're eating it," she says as she organizes them, "I promise."

Bill gives her a dubious look.

"If anything, I'm gonna be the one noticing pal," she retorts.

"What?"

"Common knowledge," she says as she nonchalantly places another huge jar of aggressively-labeled product on the counter, "Muscle building diets make your spunk taste gross."

"What?!" Bill nearly chokes, but tiger is unfazed.

"It's true," she shrugs.

"Then I'll have to counterbalance it by eating like....an entire field of pineapples everyday."

"No pineapple allowed," she continues about her business, "Too high in sugar."

And listen, the next day when Bill is away training for like, 10 fucking hours--tiger gets shit done. She has an astronomically large grocery list. She has a meal plan for the next three weeks. She hauls everything home and starts washing, chopping, cooking, labelling. Her kitchen scale is working on overtime, everything is perfectly weighed out, cooked according to the strict guidelines she has to follow.

And then everything is put into containers, Tupperware, and labelled. Not only what it is, but when he needs to eat it. His intake at 6AM within 15 minutes of him waking up. 7:30AM breakfast. 10AM snack. Lunch. 2PM snack. 4PM snack. 6PM dinner.

The exact food he needs to eat, at the exact time he needs to eat it. By the time she's done, just one week's worth of his meals and snacks takes up nearly the entire refrigerator, and the rest is stocked in a deep freeze.

She's nursing a glass of wine by the time he gets home, sore and stiff, and she's waiting with a protein shake and a hug.

"How was what?" she asks, and Bill just groans.

"Come on big guy, I'll run you a bubble bath."

But then like, inevitably--when you train that hard, whether you're used to it or not--you're gonna get injured. It's to be expected. And maybe Bill is just in such a permanent state of soreness that he doesn't realize at first that he really is genuinely injured, but when he realizes it--shit, he's in pain. He walks with a noticeable limp. Now he has to start going in for physiotherapy sessions in addition to his workout sessions--and tiger is already doing so much for him, she's already fussing and fretting over him so much, that he doesn't want to add this on top of it. He doesn't want her to worry. So everyday he goes in and he gets the injury taped up, worked on, he gets his workouts in and then he takes the tape off and tries to walk normally. And it hurts--it hurts like hell--but he manages well enough that she doesn't notice.

That is, until he crawls into bed one night and shrugs off his sweats. Tiger kisses his chin, then the hollow of his neck, then his chest. He groans as she makes her way down further, leaving suckling kisses, but then her hands run across his thighs and she stops. His eyes widen.

“What the fuck is this?” she asks.

He forgot to take off the tape.

“Uh....” he stammers. She pinches his belly and he shrieks.

“I got hurt,” he mumbles.

“You got hurt?” she repeats, “When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Ugh, Bill!” she pinches his belly again and he jerks.

“Ow tiger,” he whines, dragging it out, “Stop pinching me.”

She pushes the covers down and sits up. He bites his lip as he looks up at her sheepishly.

“What happened?” she runs her hand gently over the tape, and he sighs.

“It’s a pulled muscle. I twisted wrong in one of the fight choreographies and messed it up,” he tells her.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Does it hurt?” she asks again.

“...yes,” he admits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she leans down, closer to his face and runs her fingers over his brow.

“Because I didn’t want you to worry,” he admits, “You’re doing so much for me already, kid. I didn’t want this added on top of it.”

“I could have helped,” she says softly.

“The only thing that helps is brutal physiotherapy,” he readjusts his head on the pillow, and then smirks devilishly. “And blow jobs.”

“And blow jobs eh?” she chuckles.

“Yeah, it’s science,” he says, “Doctor’s orders.”

#BFF!Bill #bill skarsgard #bill Skarsgard drabble #bill skarsgard fic #bill skarsgard fiction #bill skarsgard fanfic #bill skarsgard fanfiction

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whamss · 2 years ago

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sorry to bring discourse thoughts here instead of on my private twitter account where nobody has to see it (especially because this is very much twitter-tier drama i feel like), but when it comes to discussions about the ratio of m/m work produced on ao3 vs f/f works i always found it absolutely crazy how people advocating for more f/f works always seem to stress that it isn’t that we need to be making LESS m/m and more that we just need to reflect on our willingness to write about male characters with depth and complexity over female characters, and how some underlying misogynistic thought may be at play for why we do that. yet people who consume/write mostly m/m who argue against that notion always just seem hell bent on justifying why we don’t need to be writing more f/f fiction in the first place and why they are completely justified in completely ignoring the existence of women in media in the first place. like lesbians saying that wlw deserve fanworks of similar quality and attention as mlm is like. an attack on their sacred right to write about men fucking each other in the ass or something.

i don’t think that we’re wrong in pointing out that, maybe not consciously, but on some level there’s a definite widespread reluctance in fandom to look at women in media and think about their characters beyond what’s delivered to us at a surface level. now it isn’t like everyone is like that, obviously, but when it comes to what people are willing to write, and what people are willing to read it definitely feels like male characters on average get way more? and you can see it so easily. over 5 million m/m works on ao3 and f/f doesn’t even break a million (last i checked), and i guarantee at least one third of that has f/f ships as background couples with little to no substance.

i’ve seen the argument around about how women in media are boring and that’s why men get more attention, and i feel like that’s an argument that could’ve worked in like 2013 anime communities when most of what got popular seemed to be shounen anime with primarily male casts but in the year of 2023 i just don’t think that’s true? like, at all. and not to mention that a character being ‘boring’ or lacking substance never seems to really keep male characters from gaining popularity. when people see a male character without much going on they seem to think “well how can i MAKE him interesting?” and so even the male characters with the least amount of substance can still get fanworks waxing poetic about their deep inner lives and struggles. but you never see that with female characters of similar quality, never. and the sad thing is that even as more media comes out that shows us female characters with rich narrative struggles and complexity we STILL don’t see that in 99% of fandom, save really for fandoms for media with female-dominated casts. so evidently it isn’t a ‘women are written bad’ problem. what is it then?

misogyny is such a no-no word in fandom and really i don’t know why. misogyny as a concept is something so deeply ingrained in society, i think that just about everyone regardless of gender or social status is guilty of some form of misogynistic thinking consciously or otherwise. and like i can totally get how it can feel like a personal attack when some random person online talks about the glaring lack of f/f works on ao3 and tosses out the word ‘misogyny’ as a possible root cause for why that gap exists. but also i feel like we as writers, artists, consumers, etc need to be willing to take a step back and recognize Why do people think this? why are we so unwilling to look at women in media with the same deeply analytical gaze as we do men? it isn’t to say that anyone who focuses more on m/m ships or writes mostly about men is a raging misogynist who hates women but i do think that there could be some unconscious misogyny at play, when looking at the bigger picture.

besides that i just think in general we as a society need to be more open and willing to listen when wlw in fandom bring up these issues. nobody is saying you can’t write about men but listening to wlw and having these discussions is important! it can be enlightening! and god i am just begging people to watch a piece of media and try to really pay attention to the women in it. not necessarily even for shipping but just like. look at the female mc and Think About Her the same way you think about men and try to reflect on her. what do you think is going on with her? what do you think she’s thinking as she does what she does, goes through what she goes through? what kind of conclusions can you come to about her deeper character from the way she acts on screen? and how do those compare to male characters who you think are written of a similar caliber? you can learn a lot from it, i think. and that willingness to extend critical thought to characters of all genders is extremely valuable.

#discourse #ao3 #rant #i guess #talk tag #why rant on twitter when you can rant for over 800 words on tumblr

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