#do you know the absolute panic I go through if I almost reblog a meme from someone’s blog

[maimedaffair]

tbt, tumblr rp trends version. repost and bold the trends you have taken part in, leave untouched the ones you’ve seen but haven’t taken part in, and cross out the ones you can’t remember or have missed.

photoshop replies. / formatting by making a line break before the end of the text field to create a block of text that never looked good on themes. / doing the aforementioned but also trying to make the lines looks even with spacebar. / the first rise of promos being two vertical images side by side. / “straight outta __” promo trend that lasted like less than 12 hours. / making shitpost promos specifically for april fool’s day. / c.rystal r.eed, d.ylan o’b.rien, and n.ina d.obrev are the only three faceclaims in the world. / everyone’s period faceclaim is adelaine kane in reign. / ian somerhalden at 35 years old works as a fc for a high school student. / amb.er h.eard is the only faceclaim in the world.

cutting threads who. / container themes. / container themes at an angle. / container themes and the links blend in with the background. / themes with a gif as a sidebar. / themes with full-width or height sidebars no one really knew how to make look good. / update bars separate from the rest of the theme. / tacky-looking autoplays. / autoplays but this time the player is tiny and in the description and starts from the beginning every time the page loads. / autoplays but this time the horizontal player at the top or bottom has a transparent layout. / “you can’t see the expression in 100x100 icons”. / insanejournal icons. / rping with big gifs. / rping with big gifs but this time it’s ironic. / “#ignore the text”

‘greeter' open starters for new followers / “hey how about we do this reblog karma thing where you send a meme if you reblog it bc no one is doing it” / “i will block you if you don’t reblog the meme from the source” / torn paper effect mobile banners. / mun faceclaim. / small text. / double small text. / triple small text. / magic anons. / rping with personals via anon asks. / a border inside the icon and an initial on the bottom right corner. / taking icons off hollow-art and just putting a psd over it. / red text on black background or vice versa no matter how difficult it was to see bc Edgy. / “multimuses are bad”. / all the mun information on the caption of the promo, including experience and formatting preference. / video promos.

[crownedrogue]

MUTUALS, EXCLUSIVES, GRAPHICS. You do not need to be a mutual to send me asks, memes or plot / thread requests. The background, ads, icons & banners etc. for this blog are made by me. Please do not take things that I have made for this blog – they match the aesthetic and I would prefer to keep them only for my use. If you would like the bases for the icons you can feel free to ask me and I will be happy to send them to you and if you would like them personalized, I am usually very happy to do so, though it might take me a few days / week or two (sometimes more) to actually get any graphic requests done depending on life!

MY ACTIVITY! If you’ve ever written with me before then you know the drill. My real life is absolutely crazy between three kids (each in a different school with different after school activities) and my numerous health concerns which tend to keep me away from rp sometimes just because of sheer pain levels or sometimes because of frequent doctors visits etc. Stress is always a huge factor in whether or not I feel up to doing any actual writing, but I am almost always available for plotting or talking or the occasional sk.ype roleplay. I tend to make graphics, banners, backgrounds and the like when I can’t actually write for whatever reason, so never feel like you’re being a bother if you ask if I can make something for you just - as in all things on this blog, patience is definitely key. If I feel pressured or if I start to get anxious about not being able to keep up activity then I tend to panic and just push the whole blog away for a while. Not the best coping mechanism, but it is what it is and this is above all else FOR FUN.

YOUR ACTIVITY! I will never pressure you for replies, though I may bombard your inbox with memes and poke you to plot or chat but never ever feel obligated to reply to anything, be it posts or memes or chats etc. if you aren’t up for it or just aren’t feeling it. Please do let me know if you are dropping a thread just so I know, you don’t need to explain or apologize for taking forever or dropping an interaction or wanting to write on a different blog or for a different character than one that had a lot of interactions with mine. Do always feel free to let me know if you start a new character or blog and would like to plot something with me, I can almost guarantee if we already write together (or have in the past) and you go somewhere new I will be happy to write with you! I may love the characters and plots but the muns behind the characters are the most important things to me. And, as a side note, I don’t care if you take an hour or a year to reply, I will always be happy to see you & it!

FORMATTING. My preference is some very light formatting and icons (of a consistent size - I might, at most, bounce between 100x100 and 200x100 depending on my mood). I don’t care if you format a lot or only a little. If you format a lot I may try and match your formatting but if I am actually pumping out replies at a steady pace I probably will skip it - it’s pretty but my brain only cooperates so often so I want to take advantage of it when it’s actually functioning like a normal human being brain and not a whirlwind of chaos and mini nuclear disasters.

My main turn offs when it comes to other people’s blogs / formatting … I do really really prefer the small font BUT I can work around it. I will probably take the quick second to make your text small when I reblog your reply in order to keep the aesthetic the same on my dash / theme as much as possible. My really big turn off though are using images that are way above the average icon-ish size. It throws everything off in terms of my visual perception and I don’t know, it just. Bugs me. It’s honestly one of the main reasons I can’t join rp groups on tumblr anymore. I don’t know when it started bugging me, or why it bugs me so much, but it just does. I am doing my best to work around that so as not to miss out on the wonderful writers out there so just bear with me!

NSFW & TRIGGERING CONTENT. I will straight up warn everyone now, I love writing dark themes, horror, murder, torture, graphic violence and angsty smut are all like my favorite things ever. However, I am WELL aware that not everyone shares those interests so please note that I will be tagging pretty much anything that I think might bother someone with the simple ‘tw triggernamehere’ tags. Self-harm, drug use, potential noncon/dubcon, mind control, alcoholism, domestic abuse, so on and so forth are likely to appear here. NSFW will always be tagged with just the simple 'nsfw’.

GODMODDING. This one is pretty simple. No godmodding. Don’t write for my characters. Even if you are writing a god, writing someone with the ability to control and puppet others, if you are attacking my character with a miniature nuke and they are standing there in their birthday suit with no way to defend themselves and you know they’re going to be annhialated … you still don’t get to write my character. You write what your intentions are, what you command them to do, how you are influencing them to do something, how you are manipulating their emotions, etc. but I will handle writing the effects of that in my reply! I am always happy to discuss plots and actions before hand, if that would make things easier for you, but I am happy to wing it and work things out as the thread develops too, in terms of harm done, effects of spells or influences etc. so please, just be respectful about handling this and we’ll get along perfectly fine!

DRAMA. Flat out simple: keep it in character. I have been roleplaying for 20 odd years now. I promise you I’ve seen it all and I have always had zero interest in being involved in it. You can always come talk to me if you are experiencing a problem, ic or ooc, with me or someone else, in the sense of I will be happy to try and offer you advice, but in general I can promise you I will not be inclined to throw myself into the middle of anything going on on the dash etc. Please do not assume that this means I don’t care about you at all, I will discuss matters privately when possible, but what it all boils down to is that I am here to have fun and I don’t like poking bears with sticks, pointy or otherwise. Confrontation makes me literally ill, and if this blog becomes a not safe place then no one gets to have fun with it … especially me.

SMUT! As I said a little bit ago, I love writing smut. It is not however the only reason I am here though, at times I’m sure the blog might seem to disagree. I get in moods where it’s all I want to write and then other times I’m just EH SURE. All of that aside, I will not, have not, will never write smut with anyone that is under the age of 18. I understand different states and countries have different age limits where that is concerned but my state / country dictates 18 is the age of consent and there is no smut in the world that is worth the potential and genuine risk of legal actions up to the possibility of incarceration for engaging in sexual content with a minor. Please, please, please do not send me NSFW related asks if you are under 18. Do not like my NSFW starter calls if you are under 18. If we are in a thread that is leading towards potential smut, I will ask you if you are 18. Please do not lie. Legally speaking, it doesn’t matter if you tell me that you are 18 and you aren’t, I am still responsible and they can still prosecute - just like with physical interactions. They really do take this stuff seriously guys and so do I, for a number of reasons, and not just legal concerns!

If you ARE 18+ and would like to do something smut related with me, by all means, let me know. Even if it’s the first interaction, I don’t care. And don’t feel like you can’t make a suggestion regarding kink or interactions out of fear of kinkshaming or anything of the sort. I will write pretty much anything except for pedophilia (again for a number of reasons) and anything involving washroom related functions. Of course, anything NSFW / triggering / explicit etc. WILL be tagged!

GENERAL. Please do not reblog my rp posts if you are not my rp partner in that thread. If you want to promote me you can reblog my promos etc., but please don’t repost my in character interactions. Please reblog your posts as TEXT. When you reblog as link it cuts off a good portion of the text and adds a bulky box to the dash. Please CUT your posts. Two or three replies at most are all that’s needed to keep the feel of a thread / interaction going. Any more than that and one: it takes forever to scroll through the dash and two: i’ve seen it go so far as to have one letter of text per line it’s so thin and thirty lines from the ‘reblog’ function. It’s bulky and generally just not necessary. Each person will have their own tag. This will be simply your URL (minus any dashes) so that you can search my page by /tagged/url for our interactions. (If you want to read someone’s interactions in order, just add /chrono to the end of any tag search!)

If you have read all of this, kudos! I really do appreciate it. You don’t have to send anything in letting me know or whatnot but if you do want to send me an ask with your url & faceclaim – and maybe your name too so I can get to know you! – I will be happy to make you a few icons or a simple graphic of some kind just as a general sign of appreciation for the follow and the time you spend reading all of my rambling!

I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone that has supported me, that has put up with me, that has followed me from blog to blog, that I have dropped threads with and been so sporadic with it has to be like a whirlwind. I appreciate each and every one of you and without all of your support and continuous patience, I know that my experience here would have fallen flat and I would not still be here in any capacity so, know that you will always have my gratitude.

[xphenxmenalx]

Guidelines

General Bits and Pieces

Heres a warning before you roleplay with me! Not following these rules can and will lead to me unfollowing you. These are rules for a reason meaning they are to be followed as such. Don’t like my rules? Don’t like something I say? Delete me! Your negative comments has no affect here, only consequence. Plenty of other roleplayers, you can follow and roleplay with instead..It’s all about fun! we’re all here to have fun, so let’s make the most of it. I don’t like to be miserable and I would never purposely make anyone else upset or miserable either. so let’s have fun.

Interacting

I will never ignore you! If you send me a message and I don’t reply? It’s mostly because Tumblr is being a douchebag and ate it. If we have a thread and I haven’t replied to it? Please message me because more than likely, didn't see the reply, got distracted and forgot it or I lost it. If you decided you want to drop something between our characters, for whatever reason, please let me know, don’t just disappear and/or ignore me because I will assume the worst, so yeah please tell me. I won’t get upset, I will respect your reasoning behind it, and I’d like to know rather than being left hanging.

No Out Of Character Drama! No God-Modding!

Important! I absolutely can’t stand drama, it absolutely makes me sick, so keep your drama away from me. Besides I will not tolerate any ooc drama whatsoever. I come on here to have fun and roleplay and meet new people, I’m not here for all of the petty drama that comes along with rping sometimes. I don’t care to start drama, but if you start drama with me, then I promise its going to start a war with me. I can’t stand immature roleplayers, cry babies, or attention whores meaning I really can’t stand immature people acting like cry babies to get attention. Oh I do have a short temper and when I explode its never pretty. I will go off majorly and sound like a bitch only cause you deserve it for actually being a dick and starting drama instead talking your issues you have with me, in private with me. HOWEVER, this doesn't mean in character drama isn't allowed, in character drama is definitely allowed.

This is roleplaying essentials! Unless I’ve given you permission, I don’t want you to use my character and do things with them that I haven’t said okay to. Which means you need to understand that I am the one in control of them, not you so just don't try to control my muses and do not kill any of them. God-mod is never okay to do so please don’t do it here.

Relationships & Shipping

This blog Is Multiship/Multiverse! This means that they will have more than one relationship/plot going at a time. This does not mean any of them are cheating on anyone, unless we discussed it before hand. If you’re unsure of what this entirely consists of, please, google it before trying to get into it. I just want to make sure you’re informed. Don't force a ship down my or my muse's throat! That's absolutely not cool and fucking rude, so just don't do it. If you force a ship upon my muse and me, I will not be accountable for my muses actions towards your muse or you. However I will not allow them to kill yours, just let them be a dick towards yours and possibly allow them to hit yours. It will invertedly lead to you being blocked, I will not apologize because you are the one who broke the rules. I ship based on chemistry. Don't assume we are shipping without talking to me. Just because my muse kissed or had sex or flirted with yours doesn't mean we are in a serious ship.

My Muses Sexuality.

Alexa ➳ Straight

AJ ➳ Bisexual

April ➳ Straight

Jon ➳ Bisexual

My Muses Main Verse Relationship.

Alexa ➳ Single

AJ ➳ Single

April ➳ Single

Jon ➳ Single

Their relationship upon interaction unless plotted out is SINGLE which means they are currently unattached. That means Alexa is not engaged to Murphy, AJ is not married to Wendy, AJ is not married to Punk, and Dean is not married to Renee.

My Opts Who I Will Instantly Be Oki With Shipping With:

Alexa & Baron

Alexa & Allen

Alexa & Dean

Alexa & Randy

Allen & Dean

Allen & Alexa

Allen & April

Allen & Baron

April & Dean

April & Allen

April & Punk

April & Randy

Dean & Allen

Dean & April

Dean & Alexa

Dean & Punk

Dean & Randy

Dean & Baron

My Hell No Opts Who I Will Not Be Oki With Shipping With:

Alexa & Murphy

Alexa & Blake

Alexa & Sami

Allen & Charlotte

Allen & Natayla

Allen & JoJo

Allen & Renee

April  & Dolph

April & Daniel

April & Sami

Dean & Renee

Dean & JoJo

Dean & Charlotte

Dean & Natayla

Just because your muse isn't on the list, doesn't mean I wouldn't be okay with shipping our muses, you can always go ahead and ask me or tell me if you wanna ship just don't force a ship on me or my muses, for there to be chemistry between them first before a ship happens. Just remember I hold the right to turn you down for a ship I don't feel comfortable with.

If your muse falls on the hell no opt list and you want to ship then please talk to me and we can see if something can be arranged but remember I do have the right to turn you down. If it does happen, I will possibly only allow ONE ship of it, not multiples because I want to be comfortable on my blog. Tho same thing goes there has to be chemistry between them first.

I Write Smut But You Must Be Of A Certain Age To Write Smut With Me!

Yes, I do write smut paras and posts, yes sometimes I'll post smutty pictures. However I will not place them under read more tags, just because I shouldn’t have to. I'm sorry but if you have a problem with this then just don’t read my posts, its that simple. I will always try my best to make sure I tag them NSFW, no promises tho cause shit happens and I may forget.

You need to be 18+ in order to write smut with me, why? Because I'm in my twentys, which makes me a legal adult and I’m not going to jail if your mom or whoever is legal guardian of you finds our paras. It will fade to black before it even heads in that direction if you are younger than 18. Also if you are legal age and uncomfortable with writing smut then we can make it fade to black, I have no problem with that.

Smut however may be a rare thing that happens even if I have a sex driven muse, the mun is very shy and unexperienced in that area. I will however try my best but if it sucks then I am sorry, I just don't want to make promises or forbid it at all so I'm just gonna keep it at a rare thing because it can happen if threads lead in that direction or if a meme is sent or received.

Quick Facts & Rules

Make sure you read all G u i d e l i n e s and I n f o r m a t i o n accordingly before you interact with any of my muses

I am not exclusive but I am extremely selective and semi private so I reserve the right to deny any interaction between our muses. However that happening is rare since I am usually very open to roleplaying with anyone unless I have reasons of not wanting to roleplay with someone.

If I post a meme please don't be scared to send one in, even if we haven't interacted yet or if we already have other threads. I don't care if we have to skip ahead or a bit behind in the timeline, lets just build the story of our muses. I reblog them so we can interact and build a story. If you don't send one in occuasionally then reblog from the source and not me.

 If you send a meme in then please specify which muse you want! If you don’t then its either gonna get deleted or randomize. I get it that you may not care who you get but have the common courtesy to say ANYONE so I know its definitely oki just to throw a random muse at you and that you'll be oki with it.

If we are mutual following each other then please try to interact with me and I'll do the same with you, I may be a bit shy but the effort of trying to make it work is so much better than feeling invisible and horrible. 

If I post a starter call, please only like it if you plan on answering. I rather not waste my time typing up a starter for someone who doesn't even answer it. If it doesn't work for you then please tell me and I can try to fix it to where it will work for both of us. Also if you possibly like it to notify me that you received it and tumblr isn't being a dick, or I'm gonna possibly have a panic attack over worrying about if you got it or not.

I'm sorry but if you break any of my muses to where they are no longer happy outside of threads then I will literally go off on you. I don't mean to be a bitch but it has happened before to the point I almost lost a muse and I don't need to lose any of my muses. Try to understand it doesn't just affect my muse but it affects me too. This is my escape from everything I have to go through in real and when roleplaying starts hurting me too then something is in major need of changing.

Now I need to point out one thing, I aint exclusive means my muses will play with other muses of the same muse and possibly ship with them. But that doesn't mean you will be replaced or I like them better. No one thread will be exactly the same as others and I don't want to restrict my muses to having to miss out on others incredible writing and muses. I LOVE YOU no less. just remember that.

If I reply to certain threads faster than yours, its nothing personal its just sometimes I only have muse for certain threads. I promise I'll reply to our thread when I have muse for it til then it will be sitting in my drafts, unless I lost it or eventually ended up dropping it cause I had no muse for it. I'll mostly likely drop you a message saying sorry about dropping it so you know I did. I may ask if you received my reply or replied to our thread to see if it was lost. However it may be awhile before I ask that because its sorta hard for me to ask since I worry about annoying you, so either I'll just assume its in your drafts or the worst it was lost.

In order for me to even consider following you, you need to CUT YOUR DAMN POSTS, honestly this is my biggest pet peeve and I really don't want my dash to be a clutter fuck. If you’re entirely unsure of how to do so, please google it, I don't want to be rude I just want to make sure you’re informed. Honestly I know how hard it can be when you are on mobile but its not impossible, tumblr gives you an option to delete old replies. If you can then you can either have someone help you or start a new post after like 2 long replies or 6 short replies between both partner

If you want to turn an ask into a thread then go for it, all I ask of you is you move it to a new post. DO NOT REBLOG IT FROM THE ASK. I will not follow you if you do that shit, it clutter fucks shit also and its fucking annoying to see.

I don't care how many threads we have but do try to be a bit understanding, I'm not supergirl. My muses and I can only handle so much before we gets to the point everything is too much to handle. Which means replies may take a while to be answered and posted, hell some may be answered and place in queue that following night so I can keep up. I may start to limit the amount of threads each muse can have with a certain muse to about 2-5 depending on the length of them that gets posted straight away then the rest shall go into queue. I'm sorry but  I don't need my muses or myself to feel like we're drowning in replies and get stressed about not being able to keep up and get everything posted in a reasonable manner. This is supposed to be fun since this is a hobby, not a job.

If you tag me in a starter then please make sure my muses and I can understand it. If its too confusing for my muse to figure out how to reply to it and I can’t help them then its going to be in my drafts for awhile til it gets deleted. I’ll feel like shit about it cause it isn’t because I don’t want to roleplay with you, its just my muse doesn’t know how to answer and I can’t help them. Its not fair to my muses if I make them do something they are completely confused about and don’t even know how to answer.

Alright I’m sorry but this has to be said because right now I just can’t stress it enough. I’m a multimuse blog, which means that means this blog contains more than one muse on it and you know what, you may not see them all being active because a certain one may become popular. I don’t know why that happens but it does and I appreciate the love you are giving to that muse but it is unfair to the rest of my muses. They deserve a chance, not just one damn muse. I get it you have favorites but honestly its not fair that you don't even take a chance on the others, since you may never know what could happen there. Plus I don't need any of my muses feeling left out or unwanted because you decided to play favorites, it makes them want to disappear and I honestly don't want to lose any of my muses so please try to give them all a fair chance, not just one specific muse of mine. If you are unsure where you can find out what all muses I have then here let me inform you real quickly. I have a page that lists all my muses which you can find under the word my muses which is right next to the words Read First! You can click the link to the page underneath the gif at the top of my guidelines page or you know it states my muses faceclaims at the bottom of the guidelines page, it actually gives a list of everyone I have a couple of times through my rules so there is no way you could miss it if you are actually reading my guidelines.

Mun Notes

I have anxiety, depression, bipolar, mood disorders, and phobias. I'm sorry I can't control how fucked up I am but you are gonna have to bare with me. If I disappear without warning, its because my depression has hit an all time high and tumblr isn't helping me any. I always return tho and do my best to get all replies I owe done, even if it takes me forever. They will come I promise, unless I have dropped or lost a thread; in that case I will let you know.

I have a personal life and that will always come first, which unfortunately means that there will be times where I may not being able to get on and there may be times that I am online but to distracted to be paying attention to my laptop. There will be times when replies are fast as fuck and there will be times where replies are so as fuck but either way I will do my best to reply to you.

I will never ever send anyone any hate messages since that is very immature, I only send adorable messages to try to make one smile but its very seldom that I send anything because I am a bundle of nerves and shy as fuck haha.

I am a sweetheart til I'm pissed off, in which I must warn you that I have a short temper. Unfortunately you can say I truly am a nightmare dressed like a daydream.

Please don't assume shit, I hate that shit so much. I had that happen to me more than once and it hurts like hell. Especially when I am accused of something I didn't do, plus it is highly rude to assume shit without proof.

All Icons have been made by me, unless stated otherwise. Don't steal or use them without asking me first. It was hard work that took forever to do, I spent alot of time on them with the lil resource to make them. I do not own any of the gifs I use, unless I have stated otherwise.

I play my muses the way I want to play them, not how the show plays them, not how the actor plays them, not how others want me to play them. I shouldn't have to since I play them for me, and only for me. I play them so I can have an outlet away from stress, not to gain stress from the pressures of following canon perfectly. I will never follow canon and I'm proud of that, however if you have a problem with how I portray my muses then please go somewhere else.

I do not claim to be any of the muses I protray nor will I ever!

URLS

These are the urls I'm tracking.

Main ➳ xPhenxmenalx

AJ ➳ P1Stylez

Alexa ➳ lilxmissxbliss

April ➳ lxvebitesx

Jon ➳ xlunaticxfringex

[shanethvarosa]

2018: In Review

At this point in time, I feel like my blog is 100% reblogs of memes and ridiculous videos of animals and maybe some gratuitous selfies. Originally, Shaneth Varosa was supposed to be a place for me to publish some of my articles about music and try to facilitate discussion about these releases. Unfortunately, life gets in the way, and I can’t write like I used to. While here on Christmas break from work, and with the next hour or so of free time I have, I wanted to go over some of the artists that did The Most this year and recommend their work in case you’re in need of something new and exciting. See more after the cut! 

I’d like to start with about five honorable mentions and then move in to the ten artists who did the best job at promoting their craft and developing something sincere and meaningful. These honorable mentions all had really great releases, but overall didn't feel very impactful to pop culture overall. 

1. Florence And The Machine - High As Hope  was absolutely one of my most anticipated albums this year, especially after the amazing lead single was released out of the clear blue sky. The follow up single, Hunger, is one of the most relatable tracks in her discography. However, the lack of overall energy was somewhat disappointing despite the lyrics being 100% on point. 

2. Miyavi - I’m not sure I’m as big a fan of the Samurai Guitarist as I used to be, however he really is expanding upon his talents and schmoozing with the right people. A feature from Samuel L. Jackson was no small feet and he really did some neat guitar work on his third collaborative album this year. 

3. Crystal Kay - A Japanese/American pop star with a voice like Janet Jackson, but does not always make the strongest choices when it comes to album tunes. Her singles for this era were almost entirely ballads, so when she released an album with actual bangers for the summer, I was very impressed.

4. Cher - Usually, when Cher releases an album it is a shoe-in victory for album of the year. However, she really only did a cover album of songs, even if they were completely amazing songs. Here’s hoping she has a collection of original material to release soon. 

5. DADAROMA - A newer VK mainstay, but they haven’t actually released a full collection in over two years. Instead, they’re focusing on singles and EPs. This year, they began with “This is Live” which really blew me away following their lackluster third installment of the Dadaism series. They rounded out the year with the fourth installment which was also a significant improvement. However, in 2019, they should consider an album. 

Without any further ado, the top ten artists who really Did That this year:

10. Troye Sivan: I am a sucker for a good Gay Tune and “Bloom” had 12 of them. It’s rare when you find an album that has no tracks you want to skip, and maybe I’m biased, but there isn't one track that isn’t relatable to me and most of my pals. Highlights: Plum, Dance to This, Animal. 

9. CHVRCHES: Every couple of years, I’m guaranteed an over-the-top synth album from this group. Their debut found me at just the right time and their follow up found me at just the right time as well. These two albums really struck a chord with me personally and so naturally I was through the roof the Love is Dead was announced. While the production and vocal performance was totally still there, the lyrical content didn’t quite get me the way the previous albums did. Highlights: Graffiti, Graves, Deliverance.

8. Kamijo: Interesting how my favorite male singer and my favorite female singer both released albums this year and how neither of them made top five. Well, of course they were both excellent, but something stopped them from being everything they could be. Kamijo’s newest solo effort came in four parts and they were all a little confusing. Sang’s main storyline seemed to insinuate Napoleon Bonaparte was a vampire and the third installment of the album was a duet with vocaloid Hatsune Miku. Not to say the vocal performance and composition weren’t top of the line, but I just don’t know what he was trying to do with this era. Highlights: Sang II, Emigre, Nosferatu. 

7. Dir en grey: The world’s most iconic shock-rock band finally returned to us after a four year hiatus. This year’s Insulated World really did give us something to behold: A concept album that wasn’t completely based on mindless violence and fake-deepery. Sure, Kyo does his standard noise-making throughout a lot of the album, but I firmly believe this is their best work in about ten or more years. Highlight: Ranunculus, Keigaku no Yoku (Ravenous Greed), Ningen wo Kaburu (Suffering Human Beings). 

6. The 1975: A recent favorite of mine. Their singles for this era really enraptured what it is to be in your late 20′s in today’s day and age. Their whole album ended up being somewhat bizarre and ballad-heavy, but everything they put out before the main LP was fire and deeply, personally relatable. Highlights: Give Yourself a Try, Love it If We Made It, I Like America and America Likes Me. 

5. David: Most who will read this post will probably not know that “David” is a pseudonym for VK heavy-hitter Sui. This man started out in Metis Gretel many years ago, moved to a band called Megaromania, worked briefly with Lin before ultimately achieving his solo project which is easily the best thing he’s ever done. Probably because it is produced by Kamijo, but I digress. This year, he gave us his first solo album released in too-many parts, but the overall product was outstanding. His visuals even made him look like a true-blue cartoon character. Highlights: Confession (Awakening and Genesis), Genesis (In Bible), Metempsychosis. 

4. Panic! At the Disco: This band, whom we all know is just Brendan Urie, blew me away several years ago with Death of a Bachelor and the only way he could go at the time was down. DOAB was one of my top 25 albums of all time and I didn’t think he could outdo himself, but the energy given to us on Pray For the Wicked was genuinely dumbfounding. His lyrics were and are always at the forefront of what makes him special and for that reason I’m ecstatic that I have “Filthy as Charged” on a t-shirt. Also, he managed to make the title track of “The Greatest Showman” into the banger hit I knew it could be. Highlights: Dancing’s Not a Crime, Dying in LA, Old Fashioned. 

3. Asagi: For those of you who don’t know, Asagi is another heavy-hitter in the VK world. He did attempt a solo project back in the day, but it didn’t take off. This year, thankfully, it really did in the biggest way and he didn't let his main project, D, suffer at all. Fans were getting bored of D’s constant Vampire and/or Alice in Wonderland themes and so he basically said “I hear your pleas, here is what we give you” and released a traditional Japanese album with a modern twist in January as the true beginning of his solo presence. The man then followed up with several incredible singles with D including Revive and Deadly Sin, both of whom had insane B-Sides. Highlights: Madara (Chestnut Tiger Butterfly), Gekkai no Miko (Children of the Moon World), Homuzakura (Hidden Cherry Blossoms). 

2. the GazettE: An absolutely legendary band, one of the fewest VK success stories to be told. They’ve released so many concept albums over the years with stacks and stacks of successful singles, but 2015 really was their comeback year. They revamped everything about themselves and gave fans the darkest album in recent history. How do they follow it up? With their 9th LP of varying intensity, which was actually quite refreshing. My personal favorite aspect is how absolutely self-gratifying it was. Highlights: Ninth Odd Smell, The Mortal, Sono Koe wa Moroku (This Voice is Weak). 

1. BoA: My favorite multi-national pop-star had a... Kind of ridiculous last few years. In 2014 she released a Japanese comeback album that was literally a collection of singles that came out since her last album. In 2015, though, she brought us back with a Korean album really showcasing her talents as a singer/songwriter and then in 2018 she did THE MOST!!!! She starts the year with a Korean EP called “One Shot, Two Shot” which was all bangers, and then followed up with a Japanese LP called “Watashi Kono Mama de ii no Kana (I Wonder if I Can Remain this Good).” This album was a little less perfect than the EP, however it will be forgiven as it had a perfect selection of ballads with one of the hottest tracks of the year: Mannish Chocolat. Don’t ask me what that means. Almost immediately after, she released an EP called “Unchained” which was an acoustic set of some of her recent ballads. Most notably, “Close to Me” was released as a completely acoustic piano ballad. Several months go by, and she comes back with a Korean LP called “Woman” which was almost completely perfect as well. “Encounter” and “No Limit” are probably the hottest tracks, but the title-track really showcases her feminist nature. She rounded out the year with yet another Japanese single called “Amor” which is, truly, the hottest dance track of 2018. I hope she keeps this momentum up next year!