#god i miss the old post editor so fucking bad. every day i miss her.

[damienthepious]

i can't believe this has this many chapters already, it feels like i JUST started it. wtf. ough augh hrgh hng. poor arum, as per usual.

The Beast In On His Chain (chapter 19)

[read on ao3]

[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 2 (spoilers for everything)

(covers MDZS chaps 6 - 10 and a bit of 13)

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

(a 🐰 is earned every time there is a WangXian scene or even when they’re just thinking of each other)

I always tell people when I’m trying to get them to watch The Untamed that when they get to this particular scene in the second episode, they’ll know if they will be into the show. To me, this is the game-changer moment: you’re either in or out after this. If this scene doesn’t emotionally move you enough to at least continue on with the drama, nothing else will.  It is seriously one of the most romantic scenes I have ever seen captured on screen. This was the moment that made me realize not only was I now fully committed to CQL, but that I had also found a new obsession and was ready to devote myself to Mo Dao Zu Shi.  After all, something that can lead to the creation of such a beautiful scene MUST hold other invaluable treasures. So into the MDZS rabbit hole I went, happily diving head first.  

Even now I’m still amazed that this scene exists in the intact form that it does. I started The Untamed with little to no expectations, especially knowing the restrictions it was under AND having just finished Guardian and experiencing how poor creative decisions can arise due to censorship (or at least, using that as an excuse for their dumb story choices). As I mentioned previously, the first episode was a hard sell since they definitely did not put their best foot forward first, but I liked Xiao Zhan immediately and Wei Wuxian as a character was interesting enough that I wanted to learn more about his past that led to his death and rebirth. The small glimpses we saw of his relationship with Lan Zhan also fascinated me, but then with this second episode, the weak points of the pilot still remained: there was still bad CGI (the statue) and very amateurish technical mistakes (in the recognition scene, at one point, in a close-up shot they’re holding onto each other, but in the next far away backside shot they’re clearly standing apart from each other, only to return to holding each other once again once the camera cuts back to a close-up...whoever the editor is on CQL probably should dunk their head in the toilet every time these editing errors pop up) that made my initial viewing of this episode a frustrating one for most of its runtime. I think I spent most of my initial viewing just distracted, playing on my phone or something, until the big WangXian moment happened and then I was shocked and awed.  I know I wasn’t paying close attention that first time because when I rewatched the episode later on, I realized I missed a lot of dialogue and details. I have since revisited this second episode numerous times more, and I do feel bad about how dismissive I was initially. It’s a pretty loaded episode: it has funny, poignant, creepy, mysterious, and cool moments while still feeding us bits of the overarching plot. I definitely have developed an affection for it since my first viewing and it’s become one of my favorite episodes in the series.

Of Pining & other Heart-achy Things

This simple line from Jiang Cheng is enough to make my eyes well up with tears: I can’t help but imagine Lan Zhan traveling around the world for sixteen years, most likely all alone, stopping at different places to play Inquiry, fervently hoping that maybe one day he’ll finally receive an answering chord from Wei Ying, only to be confronted by a deafening silence again and again and again. How utterly sad and disappointed he must have been every time, and yet still, he never gave up and just went to the next location to do the same thing and experience the same heavy disappointment all over again. If that doesn’t make your heart ache, I’m sorry to tell you, your heart is no longer functional.

It’s a detail I don’t remember if the novel covered, but I’m assuming that Lan Zhan was the one to bring Wei Ying’s inventions like the spirit attraction flag and the compass back to Gusu and incorporate them for use in his sect’s normal cultivation practices.  I know other people have use his tools as well since that nameless cultivator at the start of the episode was also using the spirit compass, but I feel that with Lan Wangji, he probably purposefully acquired and adapted WWX’s techniques so that every time they’re used, they can serve as a reminder of Wei Ying for him. Though it does make me wonder how Lan Zhan managed to get those approved by his uncle; I can’t imagine Lan Qiren being ok with using anything that was created by the man whom he blames for the corruption of his beloved nephew and model student. Did LWJ just pretend he created them instead? That doesn’t even sound right. Maybe Uncle Lan decided to be merciful and just let Lan Zhan win this one since he was probably obviously miserable after Wei Ying’s death.   Yeah, I can buy that scenario, especially since the flag and compass are pretty useful tools.  

I wondered did LWJ already suspect “Mo Xuanyu” was Wei Ying before he started playing Wuji on his flute. It’s curious that he happened to be in that part of the forest at that time. I’m guessing his Wei Ying senses were tingled when he heard about Mo Xuanyu’s skills from Sizhui and the boys so that’s why he was hanging around the vicinity just in case MXY reveals his true identity. After waiting 16 years for this reunion, it’s no wonder Lan Zhan had no qualms about holding onto WWX’s wrist in public for much longer than socially appropriate.  

I actually get a little emotional every time I rewatch this episode and watch Jin Ling display his mad archery skills because I would always think of how much he takes after his dad. His parents would’ve been so proud to see him all grown up like this; Shijie would’ve been so happy she probably would get teary-eyed as well every time she saw her boy in action. Sure, he’s a spoiled little princess, but he is also a pretty skilled princess with a heart of gold and I just wish they had more time together as a family.  

They looked so happy, look at all those smiles. It really makes me so sad that Wei Ying will probably never be able to hug JC like that again, and of course he’ll never be able to hug Shijie period. Great now I want to cry again.

Lan Jingyi Appreciation Section

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this precious boy by name so far, so I wanted to take this opportunity to show him some much deserved love. Lan Jingyi with his resting bitch face and steady stream of snark was really the MVP of this episode. He actually made me laugh out loud a few times...in fact, he almost always makes me laugh as soon as he scrunches up his face like he’s smelling something bad. I recently saw someone mention that he’s really the most un-Lan of the Lans (sorry, I forgot who posted that so I apologies for not giving proper credit) and that is really the perfect description of him. I love this kid as much as I love Sizhui and Jin Ling, and I am also sincerely fascinated by him. I mean, who raised him in the Gusu Lan sect? Cuz I cannot imagine Lan Qiren being the one since Jingyi undoubtedly would’ve had all his snark driven out of him at an early age. Hell, the amount of disciplinary action he probably had to have gone through would’ve probably killed him at a young age.  Did he join the sect when he was already fully formed so that’s why he’s still breaking Lan sect rules right and left? He threatened an old man and is like rude to everyone. I don’t know all 3000 rules but I’m pretty sure being mean to the elderly and insulting to supposedly mentally unstable people are probably not allowed. If anything, his disposition would make him more suitable for the Lanling Jin sect and yet he’s with the stuffy Lans. WHY? I could watch a whole spin-off series with just him and the other juniors as long as we get to learn about how he came to be with the Gusu Lan sect. He’s hilarious and adorable, and among the many the reasons why I wish we had more episodes for the present-day arc, one of them is because I wanted to spend more time with the juniors, especially Lan Jingyi, even if it meant the screenwriters would’ve had to go off book and create new scenes for them. It would’ve been well worth it to hear LJY throw more shade at people.  

Random Bits of Randomness

It’s kinda crazy how WWX just stood there with his back turned, oblivious to Jin Ling’s attack. If Lan Zhan’s blade hadn’t blocked JL’s sword, that would’ve been the end of our main protagonist. I just thought that was such an odd scene...I would’ve felt just a little better if Wei Ying had at least had a little more awareness that an attack was heading for him and made some attempt to get out of the way.  

Ugh, that mask. First of all it’s ugly AF, and secondly it’s so freaking ill-fitting it was distracting. Would’ve been nice if the production team gave him a mask that actually fit his face. I mean, did it HAVE to be THAT damn big? I’m amazed they don’t have bts clips of Xiao Zhan tripping and hurting himself because the stupid mask blocked his vision.

Other than being a brilliant mastermind and Oscar-worthy actor, Nie Huaisang has got to be one of the greatest cultivators if not THE greatest cultivator of all time to be able to conjure up an illusion like that. That thing was doing real damage to people. If it was just a phantom, what the heck was holding up those two cultivators in midair like that? And what kicked Jin Ling around? I know Wei Ying was able to drive people crazy with his flute during his Yiling Patriarch phase, but his handiwork still felt more grounded and reasonable than this.  

Questions I still have (please feel free to answer them):

- Who was that old man at the grave? Someone NHS paid to just hang around the graves until the juniors and WWX came by?  

- So NHS basically fucked up Yan’s entire family and God knows how many other people just to get WWX to eventually play his flute to lure Wen Ning out from wherever he was hiding?

- How did JGY not know Wen Ning escaped? Or did he just leave those details to Xue Yang so he didn’t really care about what happened to Wen Ning?  I’m trying if this was addressed in the book but my mind is coming up empty. I don’t think it was brought up in the show though, or I just completely missed it.

Overall Episode Rating: 9 Lil Apples out of 10

[thesinglesjukebox]

CARLY RAE JEPSEN - WANT YOU IN MY ROOM

[7.80]

Give a [10]! or a [4]! We don't care! Anymore! (actually we clearly do care)

Josh Winters: The sound of the heart set aflame. [10]

Tobi Tella: Oh my god. The synths, the sultriness, that goddamn HOOK. Dedicated had a lot of great and fun, pop music, but this comes out of left field in the best possible way. It's one of the most direct and sexy things, she'd ever done. Is this what gay heaven feels like? [10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Big "looks-up-grinning-like-the-devil" energy: when CRJ sings, "I wanna do bad things to you," the mischief is both inexplicably sweet and dirty. [8]

Michael Hong: "Want You In My Room" might be Carly Rae Jepsen at her horniest, but it's also Jack Antonoff at his least restrained, together making something that's thrillingly giddy. Carly Rae Jepsen drops some of those thinly disguised hints for more straight-forward temptations, coming across as intense where Dedicated erred more towards tepid. There's still room for coyness, with the distorted "want you in my room" bashfully buried in the mix and the way Jepsen's voice brazenly glides across the instrumental on the line "slide on through my window." But most importantly, "Want You In My Room" feels completely uninhibited and absolutely freeing as Carly Rae Jepsen delivers any line with as much of a wink as she desires. [9]

Kayla Beardslee: Pure joy. [9]

Edward Okulicz: Every song that goes by, I find myself enraged by how average I find the average Carly Rae Jepsen to be, and I'm not entirely sure that I'm not jealous of the euphoria she inspires in others. But honestly, she's no Vengaboys, let alone a Paul Lekakis; I believe Jepsen, but I don't buy her abandon. [4]

Alfred Soto: With Dedicated proving an ephemeral listen, "Want You in My Room" does a professional job as any discrete track at isolating her strengths: finding a hook for any title and singing as if any doggerel were Heidegger. The outro sax wipes the smear of the redundant vocoder, suggesting other paths that the arrangement avoids. [4]

Kylo Nocom: Given the runtime and production choices, one would think somebody had went out and decided to parody the style of Emotion with its Wikipedia article and five hours to complete the task. "Want You in My Room" slightly lacks sophistication in both songwriting and in aesthetic: it feels like half of the song is missing by the time the track decides to fade out, and the wonky percussion/clean guitars/fucking SAX are rather ungraceful signifiers of '80s kitschiness, as if hints were taken from Carly's turn with the Fuller House theme song. These tiny grievances immediately disappear once those robot-voices and shouts burst out, an exercise between restraint and shamelessness that's completely undeniable. I didn't register that the vocoded voices were actually saying anything the first few times I heard this, let alone the title, but it's quite sly how that turned out: the most explicit demand of the hook is obscured, leaving "I wanna do bad things to you!" which beats around the bush a tiny bit (thankfully, less embarrassingly than Camila) and additionally gleeful cheers before that lovely inquiry of "baby, don't you want me too?". I'm still frustrated this ends so quickly, but even this doesn't matter when it's the Carly song I've been using to soundtrack the crush-anxiety interludes of my life. Really, this could cut off after the first chorus and still be more exciting than nearly every other song on Dedicated. [8]

Joshua Lu: It's tempting to draw connections between Emotion and everything Carly Rae Jepsen has done since Emotion -- thematically, her work hasn't evolved much since 2015, with her primary concern being PG-13 depictions of love and heartbreak. But Emotion's portrayal of affection was grandiose and imposing, fit for blasting out the windows of your car as you get lost in the streets of LA, while Dedicated's take feels distinctly slighter and more intimate. "Want You In My Room" takes more of its cues from Kiss, if anything -- even overlooking the disco tinges and how that was the first time she worked with Jack Antonoff, Kiss employed intimate lyricism that could verge at times on the diaristic, with songs like "Turn Me Up" and "Curiosity." The song's title, conveyed through Antonoff's phalanx of robots, renders that closeness literally, but that intimacy comes through metaphorically as well, especially with that quintessentially Carly-esque grotesque lyric of "press you to the pages of my heart" and that absolutely filthy request to "slide on through my window." I'll always prefer this mode of Carly, whose depictions of carnal affection feel more genuine and evocative when she's cooing them in your ear instead of bellowing them to the world. Even the outro works for me; the music video helps to explicate that her lover has finally made it to her room, and the bleating saxophone becomes an aural metaphor of whatever the two of them are doing, now that the song has accomplished its purpose. [10]

Will Adams: The discourse around Jack Antonoff and his status as the supposed ingenue behind female pop stars' critical reappraisal is exhausting, mostly because it ignores my biggest gripe with it: the production is bad. As we've seen before, his penchant for vocoders sinks the songs and, in this case, the entire chorus. The rest is his typical beige, vaguely '80s, vaguely '90s, vaguely everything feel, as if those "Dreams" guitars haven't been done better elsewhere. Carly's not off the hook either, with lyrics as empty as "press you to the pages of my heart." The sax riffing at the end would have been nice had it not resulted in a fade-out, which only serves to let you know that no one involved bothered to write a bridge. [4]

Joshua Copperman: That post-chorus is peak Carly - her songs are best when they're anxious but sensual, innocent but winking. But that's the problem with this song, content to be an E*MO*TION throwback when the best cuts on Dedicated ("I'll Be Your Girl," "Everything He Needs") push her sound forward in ways that still remain consistent with her past. Antonoff's on autopilot, lifting his own Tom Petty rip from "Don't Take The Money" for his usual mix of 80s and non-80s signifiers. Singles Jukebox editor and writer Katherine St. Asaph's issue with Dedicated was that Carly didn't play to her fanbase enough. This goes too much in the other direction giving the gays exactly what they want but nothing more. That doesn't mean it's bad, but it's too slight when Carly's beloved for her maximalism. [6]

Andy Hutchins: Fun, frivolous, brisk, and brief in the way so many great pop songs are, and a better spiritual successor to "Africa" in 2019 than Weezer actually covering it. But I will admit that listening to the potential [3] or [15] that would have been CRJ riffing on Rye Rye's spin on Vengaboys was deeply distracting. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Want You In My Room" is the worst kind of song to write about: so self-evidently joyful and skilled in every aspect (those synths!! that sax solo!!) that it's hard to point at any one thing to analyze. Is it enough to just say that the song is the best execution of crush pop in the catalog of an artist who is the queen of crush pop? Is it enough to say that I listen to the song in the shower and my morning walk to class? Is it enough to say that this song (and really, the whole starting run of Dedicated) is an excellent soundtrack to a roadtrip with the one you love? I don't know, and I don't quite know how to express how good it is that Carly Rae Jepsen is around and making music like this, but I hope this helps. [10]

Jackie Powell: Carly Rae Jepsen knows her base just as well as she knows herself. All of the elements of "Want You in My Room" confirm that."...And I'll press you to the pages of my heart" in the pre-chorus proves how Jepsen simultaneously views love and her music. She loves fantasy and probably adores fanfiction (Does anyone have confirmation on this?) "I think I like when people look at music from a way that's this childlike magical thing that happens to us," she said at Electric Lady Studios recording her Spotify singles session. She has made it her brand for the nerds who love love--but struggle to capture it-- feel at home with the awkwardness and desire that they feel inside. Jack Antonoff knows how to extrapolate Jepsen's inner feelings and give them a sound; the track begins with three different percussive loops which symbolize the racing heartbeat of sexual and romantic excitement. The aforementioned Spotify session version of the cut further echoes the idea that this song is an orgy that would take place at a campfire for young adults. (I guess I just described Woodstock. Imagine Woodstock in 2019...oh wait.) She proves once again that both fantasy and desire are natural and shouldn't be a source of any shame. [8]

Vikram Joseph: There's probably not much that my 11-year-old self has in common with me right now. But I remember getting up an hour before school to listen to the radio, and the way that I would lose myself in pop music and it would carry me through the day, painting the cyclical banalities of breaktime and double chemistry in weird, vivid colours that I didn't fully understand back then. And it's not so different to the way that I respond to it now; the way that caffeine and Dedicated made my commute shimmer and glow on sticky mornings this summer. For me, "Want You In My Room" has been the album's febrile, halcyon peak from the start - a high-camp maximalist fantasia of love and lust, the rare ecstasy of uncomplicated desire played out in a technicolour dreamscape of synths, vocoders and sax solos. It took four months for it to acquire a music video, but there must have already been a million existing in our imaginations, us as the stars, cameras panning as we walk down streets as flamboyantly as our queer little hearts dare to. It's garish, sugary and barely sounds real, and that's fine - because great pop is escapist, always has been and always will be, and "Want You In My Room" makes me believe I can have it all (even if it's fake). [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[missfinefeather]

CamTheWizard

Nepeta lives in a caveI can't imagine she smells the best

MissFinefeather

No...Oh no... oh god no...

GhastlyGhifin

What, and she can't wash herself in a nearby waterfall or pool or something?

MissFinefeather

Why... WHY?!?!?

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!

https://missfinefeather.tumblr.com/homestuck

GhastlyGhifin

Also

https://twitter.com/traceExcalibur/status/1148452474958647297

MissFinefeather

this is bad! x.x;

GhastlyGhifin

Oh shit that's not good

MissFinefeather

How, HOW WHY?! WHAT THE FUCK?

GhastlyGhifin

Well, it's a good thing you kept such diligent tagging regimen

MissFinefeather

WELP, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS! THANKS TUMBLR!

CamTheWizard

GhastlyGhifin

just add tagged/hsday(number)/chrono to your url and you'll get the links back easy enough

CamTheWizard

Yeah, but adding tumblr links is annoying

NoBrandMinda

https://twitter.com/traceExcalibur/status/1148341396333445120

CamTheWizard

This will take forever

MissFinefeather

Still going to take me a long time ^^;;

JunianaKiwi

Whoa, that stinks

MissFinefeather

I have no idea why this fucking happened. I don't get HOW it happened!

CamTheWizard

My link pages are intact, so it's not all of tumblr

at least... yet

NoBrandMinda

The same thing happened to me once and I very nearly gave up on even having a table of contents

JunianaKiwi

Websites always have to fail in the worst ways

NoBrandMinda

One of my followers managed to find an old version of the page with the link and I was able to rescue it, but if that hadn't happened...

MissFinefeather

Like, it literally edited my HTML automatically for all of them. I didn't even do anything! x.x'

NoBrandMinda

Yup

CamTheWizard

I'm looking at the raw html from my end and the links are just gone

MissFinefeather

Yepthis is going to be a pain when I have to add in the non-homestuck stuff...

CamTheWizard

Did this happen to all your pages?

MissFinefeather

Just Homestuck

CamTheWizard

Oh you mean like con airWhat the heck is "Future MissFinefeather"?

GhastlyGhifin

That's her Stealth-Posting

MissFinefeather

Oh, i went back and liveblogged my liveblog

Only last for act 1

GhastlyGhifin

Ah, okay

CamTheWizard

I missed that, but that's next level

GhastlyGhifin

Oh, right, right, I remember that now!

MissFinefeather

If you go back and re-read Act 1, there will be "read more"s where I add future comments

CamTheWizard

Now you got to liveblog that liveblog

Continue until the joke stops being funny, then continue further until it comes out the other side and becomes funny again.

JunianaKiwi

We’d be clicking “read more”s all day!

CamTheWizard

I've copied the html of my larger link pages to text files and set a reminder to update every month or so. I recommend you do similar once you get your links up and running again.

MissFinefeather

Yeah, that's a good ideaI didn't know this was a thing that could happen...

CamTheWizard

Neither did I

but tumblr gonna tumblr

MissFinefeather

Okay, maybe I shouldn't do this tonight... or maybe this is a normal thing

Every 3 or 4 links I add the link tool will lock up and i have to save and quit out and load up the editor again just to do a few more

CamTheWizard

For me it only usually lets me add one link before breakingI never add more than two at a time though so it hasn't been a problem

MissFinefeather

omg...

NoBrandMinda

Yeah, it's terrible

There have been days where I have about a 10% success rate on links working properly

And I just have to keep re-entering them until tumblr decides to let them work

(This would be why I nearly gave up on having a table of contents when this happened to me)

MissFinefeather

I could just... ugh just... work entirely in html *dies saying that*

I might have to...

NoBrandMinda

editing the html is supposed to be more reliable

I've become a bit more comfortable lately

CamTheWizard

You still have 227 links left to go

NoBrandMinda

I had a running gag in Meat that required me to edit the HTML a lot.

(can't spoil what it is yet, though)

(Also, you probably shouldn't read my Meat liveblog until you've played DDLC. I kind of spoil that game)

CamTheWizard

Already have. Excellent game.

MissFinefeather

Alright

CamTheWizard

Miss, if you haven't already played it, toss it on your infinitely growing liveblog list

MissFinefeather

I'll probably play it on youtube if I can get that going again

NoBrandMinda

DDLC is a VN, so it might work equally well as a liveblog, or a let's play.

I remember you struggled to liveblog Deltarun because that's an actual game and so liveblogging it was a drag

MissFinefeather

Oh, it's already on the list

CamTheWizard

Sounds about right

[nacsygen]

here’s a fun fact i haven’t shared that’s been going on for a LONG time: at my work, for our logins, we have to change our alphanumeric passwords every quarter.  after my first password, which i wasn’t thinking about beforehand so just used an old reliable of mine, i thought “hmm, well, this will be easier to remember if i have a system.  hey...17 has thirteen members, and i know their age order, bc that’s how i learned their names to begin with.  i can start with one based on seungcheol and go down the line, and if i get all the way to chan, well, i’ll know i’ve been at this job too fucking long.”

welp.  i’m on minghao now.

however, with the way life is going, it’s looking like seungkwan’s gonna be my last Password Boy...bc YA BOI IS MOVING TO ATLANTA

probably. most likely.  by early summer.

it occurs to me that while i often share anecdotes of the past, i don’t make many posts about my current circumstances.  considering this is a new account, with far fewer followers and mostly mutuals, i think i’ll be making more blog-style posts here now.

for those who are newer or just haven’t seen me mention it, i’m currently a scribe, a transcriptionist/editor, working out of an almost call-center-like office in a florida college town.  thankfully, having also done call center tech support work, the difference is we just process recordings.  (dealing with tech support was so stressful, i got fucking scabies at 23 and missed a month of work, but that’s a story for another day). being a scribe is a phenomenally boring and isolating job, for the most part, and one i am very good at.  it’s a very safe job for me, in a lot of ways.  it sucks and i hate it, as one can find with basically all scribes throughout history, but it also takes a very particular set of skillsets, ones i happen to have, that make it easy as fuck.  there’s good and bad. i set my own hours, within reason. there’s very little management meddling as long as i don’t fuck up. i can easily be a bit late and never have anyone talk to me about it as long as i get my hours done.  however, it’s physically painful to sit and type for hours and hours, and psychically damaging, i’m sure, to spend hours a day wishing i was doing something else, to be paid a pittance (but it’s still above minimum wage so i guess i should be grateful?) as a skilled and experienced laborer to type all day about other people’s money, regularly including people who make as much in a month as i do in a year.  on the other hand, my gods are some of the oldest and coolest (my favorites are seshat and nabu), and at this point, after almost 4,000 hours of doing this, i’d have to actively work to get fired.  it’s safe.  there’s no opportunity for advancement, there’s no sense of my time meaning something in the grand scheme of things, there is no meaning at all.  i am grease in the wheels of capitalism.  it robs me of the energy and prime writing hours to use my hands to put down my own words, not someone else’s.  but it’s safe.

my apartment’s getting sold out from under me in a few months, and i was initially panicking, thinking about how i could find new roommates, where i could live that would be easily accessible to my work without a car, even looking up info about the apartment complex next door to it - which, between work, home, and publix, would limit most my external world to about a square mile.

then i was at work earlier this week and realized...why am i having so much anxiety about being able to keep a job i fucking hate?

change is terrifying to me.  it’s part of my coping mechanisms with my untreated adhd, i’ve come to realize (with the help of  friends who have diagnosed adult adhd and are like no, yeah, you absolutely have it).  i have to keep a very regimented rhythm of life just to function at all, which took me way too far into my 20s to even figure out.  i need to wake up around the same time every day, get dressed to leave at the same time every day, make sure my wallet is in the outside pocket of my bag, my key is in the front pocket, i’ve got my publix bag rolled up in my purse (and now that it’s winter a hat and gloves just in case), and my umbrella (also just in case), and my tablet that was a gift from my beau (loaded up with pages to read offline while waiting for and on the bus), and a paper book or two (in case for some reason i can’t read on the tablet), and a snack for mid-shift so my stomach won’t spend all day hating me.  all of this i verify both before i leave my room and before i close the locked front door behind me, especially the wallet and key.  

if this sounds dreadfully mundane, please understand, i had to learn to make this a regimented routine, every step of which i need to consciously account for even while half asleep, or else i will forget something.  more than once this compulsive checking to make sure i have my wallet and my key a second time before locking the door has saved my entire day.  all that before even leaving the house.  i had to learn this on my own to quiet the constant racing anxiety that put me in the ER a couple years ago with an inability to even keep down food because i had no idea how to be a functioning independent person.  and so much of that is mentally tied to this apartment, to this job, bc at 26 years old a couple years ago, after over a decade of battling depression and adhd and finally getting treatment for the first, at least, i was finally equipped to and also forced to become an independent human being in a capitalist society.  and it was terrifying.  but routine is safe, now.  i do the same thing every day during the week, at the same times of day, and sleep in a bit on weekends and do nothing.  time passes and passes.  i invent games and new routines for the day, meaningful boxes to tick, just to establish meaning back into my life.

i’m getting too far off track.  sorry, it’s the adhd.

the point is, change is terrifying.  but my beau - sorry for the awkward term, but “beau” and “sweetheart” fit us better than bf and gf, especially considering gender and long-distance stuff - told me as soon as i told him the news about the apartment that i could always come to live with him. i dismissed it as last resort at first.  like, we’ve known each other for almost 10 years, more couple-y than ever the last two, and he visits me when he can.  we’ve never lived in the same city, but in a sense, we both were there to watch each other grew up, despite that we first started talking as friends when i was probably 19 or 20 and he was 31.  now i’m 28 and he’s 40.  he’s inspirational to me, because for a long time, he was living the kind of life i am now - working bullshit jobs that don’t mean anything, working and living to survive, scrounging meaning and joy in independent scholarship and pop culture.  but somewhere in his mid-30s, he changed the whole direction of his life to throw himself into a career in film production.  it takes an extraordinary amount of self-motivation, courage, fearlessness, energy, time, EVERYTHING to live the kind of life he does, living the freelance life, going from shoot to shoot all across the southeast, constantly on the hussle.  but he has a career.  he’s doing something amazing that he’s good at and he loves, and bc he’s about the most likable guy alive, he has contacts everywhere, through all levels of the industry. and he’s just about the most capable person i know.

so when i had my realization, why am i so worried about keeping this job i hate, i realized swiftly on its heels that i was just terrified of change.  i wanted to keep things safe, even if it was a marginal existence - still, a safe one.  but change can also bring opportunity.  moving in with him wouldn’t just be an act of charity on his part, but helping the person he loves to make a meaningful change forward in life.  Atlanta is the capitol of the South.  i could get a job in publishing in atlanta.  i could get a job in the film industry in atlanta (fun fact: georgia is now the center of film production on the east coast.  he knows a ton of people that worked on stranger things!). i could write for a living in atlanta.  i could be a script doctor like Carrie Fisher, i could edit for a living for more than some finance office’s memoranda ephemera, i could have a life where i was able to create, and not just in my spare time and for fun.  i could live in atlanta, and not just survive. my beau, as mentioned, has contacts everywhere, and has already hooked me up with a couple writer-type-creators in the industry to mentor me.  i can do it.  i will do it.  even my mom said i’ll do better there than in the waypoint city i’m in now (and also helpfully reminded me she rents uhauls now as part of her own self-owned business).

tl;dr either in april or june, depending on what i can convince my current fairly indulgent landlord on, i’ll be moving to Atlanta and starting a whole new life.  my beau has a two-bedroom (thank god, bc if i’ve learned anything from long-term moved-in relationships is that i need my space, and he also agrees on that on his end) and his place is less than a mile away from a publix and also a main bus line and a MARTA station, so i could be easily independent as a non-driver (important not just from a relationship standpoint, but also bc realistically he’s only home about a week out of a month, cumulatively). also, he has a cat! a tabby boy named dalek! bc he’s a fucking nerd!

[lindyhunt]

Here’s All the Fashion News You Missed This Week

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A lewk, 14 hours of labor, and A king is born. This is the face of a WOMAN IN LABOR, we hold shit down most of us don’t even know how much we’re going through, I’m here to say I CAN DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT WHENEVER THE FUCK I WANT AND SO CAN YOU. Thank you @qualityresusqueen and the Fenty family for taking such good care of us

A post shared by @ slickwoods on Sep 14, 2018 at 9:30am PDT

Slick Woods gives birth mere hours after appearing on Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty runway

Rihanna has always embraced inclusivity, from her highly-varied Fenty foundation shades to the diverse models she employs for her campaigns and  her Savage x Fenty show on Wednesday night was no different. One of the models who walked the runway was a heavily pregnant Slick Woods, a 22-year-old regular feature in Rihanna’s projects. Following the show, there were various reports that the model went into labour backstage but now Woods has revealed that the contractions may have even started while she was still on the runway. “A lewk. 14 hours of labour, and a king is born. This is the face of a WOMAN IN LABOUR,” she wrote in an Instagram post that showed her posing at the Savage x Fenty show. Well, Woods will have a pretty bad-ass birth story to tell her son one day. Talk about entering the world in style… (Vogue)

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I sincerely apologize to anyone and everyone who was inconvenienced by my lateness at our Spring/Summer 2019 fashion show. For anyone interested, below is not a list of excuses but rather a list of facts. I fully understand people have plans, lives, commitments, flights, families to return to, etc and that I fully RESPECT. I’ve heard, read and reflected on your frustration, anger and outrage. If you choose to read the below, I hope that you can find your own place of understanding. 1. The night before the show at midnight, I believed that we would absolutely be starting at 6pm, as planned and it was my intention to do so. 2. At 3:30pm on the day of the show, I became aware that we would most likely be an hour late. In good faith and hope it was communicated that the show would start at 630pm and that was a mistake. 3. After years of being beyond punctual and once again, with every intention of remaining so, the fact is, more is always expected from us with fewer and fewer resources. That is not unique to me personally or us as a company. I have learned that I need to adjust to our realities. 4. It was my wishful thinking that we could accomplish all that needed to be done for this show with the circumstances we faced. I was wrong. Not because everyone didn’t make every effort or give it their all and more, life is just that way sometimes. I’ve always been told that, “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” With our shows, I always strive to present 7-10 minutes of live fashion theatre that hopefully makes some kind of statement or touch the audience in some way both aesthetically and emotionally. I think we all have to be a little more sensitive and flexible to the fragile state of the live experience. I hope anyone reading this will reflect on my thoughts as I have on yours. 
Sincerely and respectfully, Marc

A post shared by Marc Jacobs (@themarcjacobs) on Sep 13, 2018 at 8:14pm PDT

Marc Jacobs is back to his old ways with a super delayed show at NYFW

If the timing was just right for Slick Woods, it was the exact opposite for Marc Jacobs. The designer, who has been been notorious for his late runway shows in the past, seemed to fall back into that old routine this week following years of runway punctuality. The show, which was supposed to begin at 6:00pm on Wednesday night, ran over 90 minutes late and led to the subsequent departure of many show-goers and fashion editors. Anna Wintour, however, notably remained seated.

But tardiness isn’t the only reason the show has been all over the news. In fact, Twitter has been teeming with accusations that the designer delayed the show on purpose. Why? InStyle pointed out that Marc Jacobs usually closes NYFW, but this year the Savage x Fenty show began at 7:30, therefore claiming the closing spot. So did Jacobs purposefully hold off to reclaim the last show of the night? Was he trying to prevent people from attending Rihanna’s show, which was down in Brooklyn? Well, after the rumour mill got started he quickly posted an Instagram, writing an apology and (slightly convoluted) explanation of why the show ran late. “It was my wishful thinking that we could accomplish all that needed to be done for this show with the circumstances we faced. I was wrong. Not because everyone didn’t make every effort of give it there all and more, life is just that way sometimes,” he wrote. What do we think? Do we believe it? (InStyle)

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New portrait by @laurenceellis ❤️🙂😆

A post shared by Jason Wu (@jasonwu) on Jul 25, 2018 at 9:07am PDT

Jason Wu is collaborating with 3×1 on his first denim collection

Since being named a finalist in the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2008, Jason Wu has gone on to create a huge name for himself in the fashion world. But this new collection is quite a departure from the traditionally elegant pieces people are used to seeing. For the first time ever, the young designer will be experimenting with denim. Wu has steadily begun to embrace more ready-to-wear pieces, recently rebranding his main line as Jason Wu Collection, leaving Jason Wu as a secondary line that includes more everyday pieces. The Spring 2019 collection for Jason Wu includes a denim collaboration with Scott Morrison of 3×1. It will feature a variety of jeans with different cuts and washes and will range in price from $225 to $325. (Vogue)

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TOD’S: Just keep on rolling. The exclusive @tods x #Mytheresa collection boasts brand-new sneakers and all-time favorites in plush velvet. Click on the link in bio to watch the video and shop your #MytheresaExclusive pair. #TodsxMytheresa #Tods

A post shared by Mytheresa (@mytheresa.com) on Sep 12, 2018 at 8:11am PDT

Mytheresa.com’s latest collaboration is with Tod’s

Mytheresa.com is no stranger to collaborations and their latest will feature an exclusive partnership with footwear label, Tod’s. The collection, which is comprised of rich velvet-covered loafers and sneakers in jewel tones, includes the perfect transitional shoes for fall–or skateboarding, apparently. The collab is dubbed “Tods 80km/h” and the campaign images feature blonde models in denim cut-offs riding around on skateboards. A short film featuring skateboarders Lisa and Jasmin Bolt will be revealed at the launch on September 12th. (WWD)

[doomedandstoned]

An Evening With Pallbearer

~Interview: Melissa Marie | Photos: Sally Townsend~

This year, PALLBEARER celebrates their 10th birthday and it's certainly been a hell of a decade-long ride for the Little Rock four. These days, if you ask them, the band is more apt to describe their sound simply as "heavy" than by other labels, but to us they'll always be a beloved doom metal original. The fact that they've risen to occupy the same festival bills as Slayer, Lamb of God, Black Label Society, and Testament is simply evidence to the strength of their compositions and the compelling power of their message.

As winter's days waned, Brett Campbell (guitars, main vocals), Devin Holt (guitars, backing vocals), Joseph Rowland (bass, backing vocals), and Mark Lierly (drums) made a tour stop in Indianapolis, fulfilling a string of US dates in support of 'Heartless' (2017 - Profound Lore Records) -- an album Doomed & Stoned was not content to review just once, but twice over. After the show (which we filmed and now post here for your enjoyment), Joseph, Devin, and Mark kicked up their feet and chatted it up with Melissa for a spell. (Editor)

Film by Melissa Marie

First off, I just want to congratulate you on kicking so much ass since you released your demo back in 2010 or so. This is great seeing you with Ruby The Hatchet. You guys must be feeling great about what you've done in the first few months of this year already.

Joseph: It's been great so far! We have a bunch of new material we've been working on. Obviously, we put out a new record last year. We had written and recorded that album the year before, so we have been ready to work on new stuff. Even though we're going to be out on tour a lot this year, everyone has been pretty hungry to work on new songs. Every time we work on new music, we learn new things and continue to grow together as musicians, so everyone is just excited to work on new material. We already have five new songs.

Your latest release, 'Heartless' (2017), is another rather conscientious album. There is a lot to be said for the musical attributes -- and, really, 'Heartless' sounds like the most comfortable I've heard this band -- but it greatly intrigues me on a lyrical level, too. The very first track, "I Saw The End," seems appropriate to explain the enduring life in 2017. Was 'Heartless' inspired by the political climate?

Joseph: Well, Brett wrote the lyrics.

Devin: But there was a literal political overhanging, right above our practice space. Everytime we would walk outside, there's a giant Donald Trump sign. So the entire time we're writing the record and we take a break, that's looming over us. Of course, I can't speak for Brett's lyrics. Maybe it subconsciously affected it or maybe it literally affected it, but I think there was kind of element in which we were aware that was there and things were changing and it was becoming a pretty negative environment at the time. I feel better now. Not that things are good, but people are persevering and fighting and there's good things going on. At the time, it was kind of hopeless. We were practicing seven or eight hours a day and then we would go outside.

Joseph: A hate sign, pretty much, and it's still there now. That sign didn't go away. And there's an element in the song, like whether or not Trump had won the world is still kind of fucked. It's hanging over everyone and is definitely hanging over us. Even though a lot of our lyrical content is dark, we want to be optimistic. So there's an element of, let's just hope for the best. We're all gonna die someday, let's live the best life we can.

Devin: I see no point in being a defeatist. That's the most easy, cop-out thing. Your not some kind of philosopher because you think things are shit and you're too lazy to do anything. There's nothing noble in that.

Heartless by Pallbearer

Did your fans respond to 'Heartless' in the way you thought they would? I'm sure gauging the online response is difficult because trolls do exist, but do you feel you got the response you expected?

Joseph: Trolls speak the loudest, so it's kind of hard to tell sometimes. So it's easy to look to much into that you. But we toured for a solid nine months last year, and so many people came up to us and talked about how much Heartless meant to them. So many people would say, "This is the best album you've done yet!" Or even if it wasn't their favorite, they still loved it. Just hearing fans say they love Sorrow and Extinction or Foundations, we rarely heard, "Well I love your old records, but I fucking hate Heartless."

Mark: Sometimes there's a little bit of that.

Joseph: (laughs) Our shows are bigger than ever. We're playing in bigger places and more people have been coming to the shows. It's clear it was a positive thing for enough people.

Devin: And an eclectic mixture too. People of all backgrounds. People of all ages and races and sexes and orientations. It's awesome.

Joseph: There's this perception even today, that online there's a group of people that don't like Heartless.   I just feel it doesn't translate in real life. The real life situation has ended up being quite a bit different. All of us feel quite a bit strongly about the record. There wasn't that "Oh man, we messed up" moment. I think it's the best thing we've done. It helped us to grow as musicians, leaps and bounds. The new stuff we've been working on is a good sign of that. We're always looking to evolve, learn from what we've done before, maybe continue to add elements that we've utilized before or combine with new stuff we've learned recently. Lately, especially Devin and I, we've been on a mega jazz kick. It's affecting a lot of the new songwriting. It's always going to be this constant evolution.

Devin: We've learned to keep ourselves excited about music, because it can be so draining touring so much. Last year was nine months out of the year, we have loved ones and family that we miss. So you have to keep the carrot in front of yourself. So we do that by challenging ourselves and being creative. Yeah, let's try some jazz stuff. That keeps us smiling and motivated. Every night we're excited to play.

Joseph: We're constant music fans. Even if we weren't musicians and out there touring, music is something that would still consume all of our waking life. It's just a by-product of listening to and discovering awesome music.

Devin: We are an absolute testament to organic growth, I believe. When we formed this band, none of us were half the players we are now. And not that we're great, there's no ego involved, we just weren't as good when we started. We've played for years now and are constantly working hard to get better. It's been the most organic thing.

Joseph: Even as individual players, some of us were better than others but we didn't know what the fuck we were doing as a touring band. When we were starting out, all the other local Little Rock bands we looked up to didn't really tour - and if they did, it wasn't much. Those were our heros. We only saw them in a home context. So we didn't know anything about touring or what it meant to be a professional band. We learned a lot of hard lessons!

Devin: It's the absolute definition of what it means to be a DIY band. From nowhere without an idea of what to do to becoming us. And again, there's no ego or narcissism. It's just been so organic. We're all just so happy to be on the ride.

Joseph: We're still trying to figure out how to make all this work.

Mark: Hopefully, we'll continue to grow more comfortable and interesting to listen to.

Joseph: Being in a band is a weird thing because people overlook so many aspects that it's almost like being on a sports team. They don't think of everything that's on the business side. Every day we gotta figure out where we're gonna sleep. We gotta figure out where the most comfortable place where we'll be rested enough.

Devin: While being able to afford it.

Joseph: We gotta make sure we're on time to get a good sound check. Like for instance, today we had the meet and greet at Kuma's Corner Indianapolis, so we had to be here even earlier than we would normally need to. So there's all these logistics that go into it and I think 95% of the people out there just think that bands show up and play. We have a tour manager that goes with us on the road, but right now this is just a week long tour so we decided not to bring out the tour manager but she's usually with us on those longer tours and we pay her. There's so much that goes into getting up on stage and playing and doing what we love. We have to keep in mind a hundred and five other things.

Devin: Someone could be having a bad day. So you have to learn to keep your space but also have them involved but also be empathetic to what they might be experiencing. So you're a therapist, counselor, couch philosopher, whatever. You have the tread on these waves so everyone is still able to communicate at a level that everyone is comfortable and okay. Sometimes you just wake up and it's a hard day. You also remain thankful that people and came and paid to see you play, and you want to perform the best you can. It's just difficult sometimes. Everyone has bad days. You feel unattractive or any sort of issue. You feel like you look like shit -- or you do look like shit because you haven't showered in three days -- and people are taking pictures of you. We just want to perform authentically and be genuine. But some days you're sick, or you've got allergies or whatever. It's very difficult and I think a lot of people overlook that stuff. I see it. Every now and then I'll see a band that's struggling but it's so genuine and authentic, that's it's special. They'll remember that performance and you'll remember that performance and for totally different reasons.

How do you feel being referred to as a "doom" band? Of course doom is an umbrella term, but it's clear Pallbearer is more than that. I pick up on a lot of undertones that are closer to progressive rock than doom.

Joseph: That's absolutely where we started. When we started this band, our goal was to make music in that style.Very quickly, we wanted to do other stuff. We wanted to add our own sort of personal touch. Going back to what I was saying earlier, we love so many different kinds of music that it consumes our lives. There was something that felt a little disingenuous with sticking to one specific thing. We wanted to bring in other elements on top of that foundation that we had.

Mark: Foundation of Burden! (laughs)

Devin: So many bands just echo the old bands and that doesn't interest me at all.

Mark: That's my biggest beef with doom.

It's a very oversaturated scene, for sure.

Joseph: When we started out, there weren't all these local doom bands around. There weren't these Sleep/Electric Wizard imitater bands all over.

Devin: Black Wolf Goat Mountain. That's like every other fucking band.

Joseph: Well, that hadn't quite happened yet. And you know what, that's great. There's always going to be bands that are after that. If you're playing locally with your buddies, you wanna smoke weed and play sick riffs, that's great. That's not quite the same motivation we have. We are always looking to challenge ourselves. Maybe that's what those guys are doing too, it's just in a different state or realm. I don't want to downplay what those bands are trying to do. We just very quickly grew out of wanting to emulate these tone bands.

Devin: Like amp worship shit. I like amps too, but there's a thing where you're gonna sound like Black Sabbath or Sleep or Pentagram. You eliminate those things and there's only twelve bands left.

Joseph: If we're talking amp worship, I'll take Robin Trower's amp tone versus Electric Wizard's amp tone.

Devin: You're not gonna be better than those bands. Why rip off Sleep? Because it's not going to be as good. Ever. Fucking ever! You're never going to be as good, ever. And there's so many bands that do it. It's cool if you're jamming and shit, but if you're really trying to perform or be genuine about it, I don't understand the drive of sounding exactly like someone else.

Joseph: There's no band that we've ever been like, "Dudes, let's just make a song that sounds like this." There might be an idea that's one part of the song, that gives way to entirely new ideas. But never like, "Let's recreate Dopesmoker."

I really think Pallbearer is one of the key bands that helped the doom scene in really becoming so popularized in the world of metal.

Joseph: Without sounding like an ego maniac, I feel like it's a pretty easy conclusion to make. It's blown the fuck up. I don't really know of anyone else that's really quite on the same level. Windhand was out there.

Devin: Yeah, Cough, too.

Joseph: Windhand and Cough, both of those bands are at the forefront.

Devin: There are definitely bands doing it. None of us want to take any sort of sole credit. If there was a first wave the American style of doom that is real popular right now, then we were probably on that first wave.

'Sorrow and Extinction' (2012) -- definition of a masterpiece.

Devin: Thank you.

I see you will be out on a massive tour with death metal greats Obituary along with some thrashy bands like Skeletonwitch and Dust Bolt later in the year. Are you trying to reach out into new areas to find new fans? Do you think your EP with the Type O Negative and Black Sabbath covers helped push you into new territory?

Devin: We'll play a darker toned set. It'll be more condensed since we're doing direct support. It'll be a darker set, for sure.

Joseph: It's not a tour that I don't think any of us would seek out, but one of our goals is to find people out there that enjoy deep and heavy music, but haven't necessarily heard of us yet.

Devin: The worst metal fan in the world is the fucking ignorant bigot that just likes one type of metal. That's so stupid to me. It is the dumbest, funniest thing and I'll laugh at you all fucking day.

Preach!

Devin: A lot of people like Candlemass and Obituary and Metallica and Pentagram or whatever. It's all metal, people call it different things. So I'd love to play on a death metal tour. We'd rather do that than play with five other doom metal bands that all play mid-tempo shit. I love mixing the genres up.

Joseph: One of my absolute favorite bands that we've ever played with is Cianide.

Devin: They're so sick.

Joseph: A band that is completely and theoretically outside of our style of music, but they're so great. We talked to them after the show, they're fans of us and we're fans of them. It was fucking great.

Mixed bag shows rule. Like the last time you guys were here, that was a great show with Kayo Dot. I'm a big Maudlin of The Well fan. I personally really enjoyed that and it was my first time seeing you guys, as well.

Devin: Ninety-percent of my metal friends would say the same thing. Why not bring a band like Kayo Dot to a show? People that listen to metal oftentimes listen to other shit.

Joseph: There's nothing more boring than a show and every single band is exactly the same. Not just as a musician, but also as a music fan. I don't want to go to a show if it's the same goddamn thing for four hours. That is not stimulating, in any way. The Obituary show is something that our agent put together. He also works for Obituary, so he asked if we would be interested in doing it. "It's different, but yeah we're interested." When it's like this, our own tour with Ruby The Hatchet, we wanted to doing something that is memorable, stimulating. We want people to walk away excited about it. There's something for everyone out there, even if they don't like us. Maybe they'll enjoy the other bands.

Any future potential covers? Your Type O Negative cover fucking ruled.

Joseph: We're doing "Run Like Hell" (Pink Floyd) very soon, actually. We're recording that in April. We're always talking about new cover ideas.

When I had heard that you guys covered Type O Negative, I was not sure but then I listened to it and damn! Pete Steele's voice is so deep and I was not expecting that.

Joseph: Brett's voice is actually really deep.

Devin: He's got a lot of range. That wasn't manipulated in any way. That's just him.

Joseph: A number of people have said that they thought that was a sample of Peter Steele at the end of the song. And, no, there's no sample -- all Brett.

Devin: No autotune shit. We are very morally against that shit.

What's the most important personal lesson you've learned from being in Pallbearer?

Joseph: Don't play through four full stacks and expect it to sound good.

Devin: Stop believing that music theory can find you. It's not a prison, it's just a path.

I understand this is one of the last dates on the tour. What's next for Pallbearer?

Joseph: As I said earlier, we have some new material that we're working on. A lot of that will not all be on one record. We're doing a song for the Adult Swim Series that should be coming out in April. Then the Pink Floyd cover. We have a few other things happening. We'll be touring pretty consistently until September or so, then it's going to be writing time for the next record.

Thanks for chatting with Doomed & Stoned, guys, and best of luck with the road ahead!

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

See Pallbearer at Psycho Las Vegas

[junker-town]

Trash Or Nawl: The 10 trash albums of the year

Welcome to Trash Or Nawl, a weekly column to help you weed through the Internet Muck. To do that, I’ll be breaking it down to a helpful binary: Is something trash? Or nawl? Topics here will involve sports and whatever else the hell I say is sports or sports adjacent. I’ll do my best to make sense of what's going on each week, but the thing to remember is no matter what I say, most of these things are still trash.

You might say this is simplistic, and hell yeah it is. This is how I make sense of the chaos. Professional grade hating restores power to my powerless stupid fan hands. I give a middle finger because I've given up clapping.

Trash or Nawl criteria: We will pick a topic. We will breakdown why or why it isn't trash. You can agree, you can comment or tweet your disagreements. Or we can fight. Really, it's up to you.

Good morning, hopefully y’all are hungover too. Today on a special edition of Trash Or Nawl, I’m finna discuss why y’all decided to make and praise these garbage ass albums. A lot of the blogs kept saying these tapes were fire, so we found out. Please enjoy this rare moment of where I put my Diddy hat and matching fur on.

“The inability to tell the difference between good pop and trash pop is the sign of a music philistine.” — My editor, Nate Scott.

With that in mind, I’m bout to fry tf outta all of the music Nate likes. [Editor’s Note: I don’t even like two-thirds of these albums and I’m not sure why I’m allowing this article to run, but whatever. Happy Holidays everyone.]

Lorde — Melodrama

I’m so muhfuckin tired of you internet people tellin me that Lorde, who basically only makes music that belongs on FIFA video game soundtracks, is making good music. This is some bullshit. Last night, I thought I was bangin out some whiskeys and was ready to party and tried out this wannabe Avatar background music. Woke up in a daze, night ruined.

And don’t you give me that “you a hating ass asshole I love Lorde” bullshit. I was gettin busy when “Royals” came out just like you were. And then whatever the hell “Green Light” is came on and ruined it. Lorde gon’ stop whisper singin’ on these tracks.

[Editor’s Note: This is one of the albums on this list that is objectively Good, and you need to understand that Tyler is just doing this to get a rise out of me and you.]

Also idk who told Lorde that this pop art album cover was litty, because this some diet Pablo Picasso ass shit. Ain’t fuckin wit it.

Haim — Something To Tell You

What the actual fuck is this? Most of these artists also just sound the same: like some weird version of whatever ‘80s movies made for white people were. Like, this easily coulda been the opening music for Pretty Woman. “Want You Back” doesn’t even make sense to me. Do you have a fear of forgiveness? Are you too proud? Are you blaming yourself?

We gotta stop telling our kids in grade school they can do anything they set their minds to because then we get shit like this. Seriously tho. I’m tired of the re-incarnation of Hall & Oates making pop music. I listened to “Founded It in Silence” five times by accident before I realized it was playing and not just my heater making noise.

Feist — Pleasure

Before “Pleasure” finally came on, I thought I got an album that didn’t have any music on it. Then when the song started and I spent the next minute not knowing what was actually said. The guitar was dope tho. Can’t hate on that. That fuckin guitar was dope as hell. But if I actually hear the word “pleasure” anymore in the way I have on this album that makes me think I’m in a Brooklyn dive bar with some round glasses ass hipsters wit they stupid turtle faces, I’m finna fight someone.

This album makes me feel like I’ve taken a lot of acid. I’ve never even had acid. Someone send me acid so I can know how I’m supposed to feel for listening to this album. [Editor’s Note: Please do not do this.] But, still. Can’t lie. This guitar is real real dope. Especially on “I Wish I Didn’t Miss You” but that ain’t gonna cut it, fam.

Charly Bliss — Guppy

I can fucks with a lil bit of some good rock music. But this fake ass Paramount [Editor’s Note: I think he meant Paramore but it’s a lot funnier as Paramount so I’m leaving it] sounding ass band wasn’t poppin. The drums was litty tho. New Indie Rock loves to do this thing where it remakes music that was born in the 80s but also the 90s now too. I felt like this coulda been played in Bring It On when Kirsten Dunst was hype because some bro made her a mixtape with his I’m Really Doing Something In Life struggle stubble. Also: Go Clovers.

Guppy wasn’t as bad as Lorde and Haim and Feist, but I just felt like someone was crying to me for 30 minutes. It also isn’t Future, Kendrick, SZA, John Legend, Migos, Badu or anything resembling it. Shit. This ain’t eem Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah” level litty. [Editor’s Note: (Long, sustained sigh)] This ain’t making me pick up a guitar. Yeen head noddin to this. I can’t keep lettin y’all whine on a track and say you waxin poetic. I fuckin refuse. Empire wouldn’t even play this on they show.

Jason Isbell — The Nashville Sound

This is purely here because in a world where we’ve decided we ain’t fuckin with blatant white supremacy and nationalism (lol, this won’t last), I am triggered by a song titled “The Last Of My Kind.” Also, Isbell getting mad because folks laughed at him in college as a justification for this song is highkey highkey highkey the same reason people comment on Breitbart.

Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum

He also made a song called “White Man’s World,” which, lol, y’all never really need to keep asking why folks don’t listen to country if this what y’all keep giving us. #WokeSZN #Resist #DumpTrump

[Editor’s Note: All the sportswriters of the world who are obsessed with this dude, please know that I had nothing to do with this section. Jason Isbell is great. Jason Isbell is the best. The Beatles? Beethoven? Fuck em. There is no one better than Jason Isbell, except maybe Bruce Springsteen, who I think you all also love for whatever reason. Please, for the love of god, don’t yell at me on Twitter.]

Margo Price — All American Made

A lot of you On The Internet Money Makin Whites love Margo Price. So because of that (and because OG Willie Nelson was making an appearance) I turned this on expecting non-pretentious and pompous ass country bangers I am accustomed to. Y’all told me this. Y’all told me she was the shit.

Welp.

Somebody call Deputy Raylan Givens and whip up that good wild west bullshit because Margo sound like the soundtrack to Justified. Margo dropped some bars that say “a little pain never hurt anyone” which is a whole lie because I promise you I was reeling from this weak shit.

OG Willie was dope tho. Don’t worry about that.

Taylor Swift — Reputation

Y’all knew this was gone be here.

First of all: IF CARDI B WASHED YO MIDDLE OF PENNSYLVANIA ASS ON THE CHARTS THEN YOU SHOULDA KNOWN WE FINNA GET THAT ASS UP OUTTA HERE BOI.

**re-adjusts collar**

I’m sad Future had to be dragged onto this album, but I know he owe Rocko a few Brinks trucks so I understand. I don’t know what Taylor keeps doing with these albums, tho. She’s always gonna get a few body rolls from me just because Future was featured here on some childish ass beats. But, y’all can’t expect me to think it’s pawpin for Tay Tay in the year of our lord 2017.

Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

The New York Times, however, wants you to know this was super hot fire. Smh.

Katy Perry — Witness

Listen dog. I used to get it EXTREMELY LIT at high school mixers to some Katy Perry. Ain’t nobody gonna ever tell me Katy Perry wasn’t the white T-Pain at one point in my life. Left Shark is the hero this world needed at a time we didn’t know it. But the song “Swish Swish” which includes a line saying “Swish Swish Bish” featuring Nicki Minaj is one of the worst things created in a year full of some of the worst things ever.

The thing I didn’t expect: Nicki Minaj was actually the second-best thing about as much of this album as I was able to tolerate. Quavo yelling “KATY PERRY,” harmonizing with her in autotune, rapping many random “ayes,” yelling his own name, and randomly saying “Bon Appetit” on “Bon Appetit” is the best thing. [Editor’s Note: This is actually correct.] I need you to notice, the good things here have nothing to do with the person who made the music. If Space Jam and an elevator had a child and it grew to become a singer, it would make this album.

Macklemore — Gemini

Skylar Grey SANG her ass owf on this tape for “Glorious.” But Macklemore following up her vocals with “I’m feelin glorious, the crib lookin Victorian, you know we been goin in, since we hopped out that Dolorean, I’m gone, things are just things, they don’t make you who you are, can’t pack up a UHaul and take it wit you when you gone, we posted on the porch my family glasses to the stars, my grandma smiling down on me like OUU THAT BOY GOT BARS” is the most sickening thing I’ve ever had to take part in.

I don’t know if I’m more mad that another Macklemore album came out or the people who keep letting Macklemore let another Macklemore album come out. The sad part is: Macklemore actually gets some really fire ass beats. But we keep getting some fake ass Eminem verses because nobody gonna tell Macklemore either 1) he can’t rap that well or 2) he can’t rap that well about happy go lucky shit all the time.

Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Mack also steps on Kesha’s angelic vocals on “Good Old Days,” Yachty’s assumed piano playing in “Marmalade,” and Offset’s ad-libs on “Willy Wonka,” which is just unconscionable. Also every single song on this tape except “Ten Million” had a feature. He reverse J. Cole’d himself. What world are we living in.

DJ Khaled & Friends — Grateful

I’m mad at Khaled for several reasons:

I followed him on Snapchat in anticipation to this album

His bit is lowkey tiresome at this point

Asahd is the most handsome baby in the world, which brings envy from my being

The album has 23 songs and is an hour-and-a-half long

The album was no where near any other Khaled bangers out

Khaled hyped this shit up for no good damn reason

That being said, this Khaled tape is probably the best worst tape of the year. “Shining” with Beyonce and her lil’friend is a fun song, and Qween has never made bad music. You’re welcome, Shea Moisture Twitter. “Wild Thoughts” still got me thinking about Havana fwiw even tho Bryson Tiller is the corniest dude alive next to Big Sean. “I’m The One” had me trine buy Bieber Merch and loudly singing said song at many functions. “I Love You So Much” was some cute Disney shit. “On Everything” had me jumpin on people’s couches.

But literally the other 80 percent of the tape is hot ass garbage. Which is super disappointing because a dude with the most Jordans in the world, prettiest baby alive, 18 mansions, superstar friends, and a call log that would envy the Lord hisself should be able to do marginally better than this.

Most times I think Khaled’s music is only good as an audio soporific. Sometimes that’s okay. Not this time. I’ve been deceived. To make up for this: Khaled plz send me some sneakers, Bellaire Rose and Jordan sweatsuits and all will be forgotten. [Editor’s Note: Khaled, don’t do thi... Actually, you know what? Khaled, do this. And throw in a sweatsuit for me.]

We’re good, Khaled. Because at the end of the day: You still better than Lorde.

If you disagree with these verdicts, comment below. As stated earlier, you can agree, comment, tweet through your frustration or fight. Really, it’s up to you.