#hmu to create the soundtrack

[thisis-elijah]

[ mulberry ]

  [ mulberry ]  what tips would you give someone with writer's block?

🌿    /    oh, i love that! welcome to my (*drumroll*):

step I:        do something else first! for me personally i always consume a shitload of different media. no matter if it's books, movies, music or video games. i usually just tend to watch one of the gazillion fantastic movies out there (if you ever need a recommendation just hmu, i'm your friendly walking movie encyclopedia) and that alone helps me overcome any writers block. documentaries help, too! just anything that broadens your horizon really, that make you deal with situations you don't have to deal with. it doesn't neccessarily have to match the mood of your texts, but it helps. 

step II:   ​​​   plotting & planning. before i start writing any text i plot it beforehand. that doesn't mean that i know every little thing that's gonna happen, but i loosely build my structure beforehand. some scenes live very vividly in my head before writing them down, other ones just start to form on the go and sometimes i don't even know how i'm going to connect scene a) and scene b). when i hear anything that inspires me i write it down somewhere. even if it's just a couple of words. for me personally, thinking about how the scene's going to look also helps me massively. i often work with the senses in my texts. for example: you have that eerie basement waiting for you, there are shadows hidden in the corners, looking like people. the dust particles are reflecting the warmtoned light of the flashlight in your hands, barely shedding enough light to see anything properly. your palms are sweaty, it's the tension and the fear you feel rushing through your veins. the silence is almost deafening, sometimes you don't really realize it's there until you feel it weighing heavily on you. and then the smell: that god-forsaken smell of decay. the smell no one actually ever gets used to.  and now you have a setting for your character to interact with. things your character can react to. it's just like in the movies, where you're constantly in awe because of the magnificent set design. from there it's easy peasy lemon squeezy.

step III:        the right music. sounds like the most obvious thing out there, i know. i make playlists for every text i write and just listen to them over and over and over again to get myself in that kind of emotional level. for example: i've recently been listening to the soundtracks of se7en, haunting of hill house, far cry 5 and doctor sleep when writing elizabeths latest text, and then changed to kristofferson 2 (fantastic mr. fox), stuff we did (up), in another life (eeaao), mia & sebastian's theme – celesta (la la land) and magic tree and i let myself go (great gatsby) when writing another (very sad, haha) text from elijah's past. i usually just stick to instrumental music but sometimes other tunes with words can help to put you in the right mood, too.

step IV:   ​​​   practice makes perfect (and the dullness of perfectionism). you're now getting advice from someone who's (partly) paid for their creativity so it's somewhat professional lol. creativity is something you have to nourish and take care of just as your body, your mental health, your habits and whatnot. the more routine you get in being creative the easier it gets. that doesn't neccessarily mean that everything you create, write or think about will be damn good. sometimes you have really really really shitty ideas. sometimes you gonna reread your texts and have this "i started walking and my legs were walking"-typa shit going on. but that's okay. it's all a process. you just gotta start. that's why i start with trying to grasp the atmosphere my character's navigating through, because it gives me a head start. your stuff doesn't have to be perfect. it will never be. and the sooner you're accepting that perfectionism is a construct that's more of an utopia than anything else, you start to feel less pressured in many ways. perfection is boring, that's why perfect characters with barely any flaws at all are boring.

step V:   ​​​   the little things. we gonna get a little sappy here and this might not work for every person, but it sure as hell helped me. inspiration is everywhere. just as joy and beauty and moments we deem as perfection is everywhere. i noticed my texts got way better when i described very "simple" scenes that happened and filled them with fragments of memories like smells or little details. thus i started to pay attention to my surroundings more: started to look up when taking a walk, how friends of mine act around each other with their little quirks and habits, found beauty in the smallest little moments, like when the person you hug just tightens their grip halfway through. or when you cook dinner and this ray of sunshine's hitting your hands in just the right angle. or you listen to that one song that makes you remember this stupid thing that happened seven years ago. find beauty in the little things because there really is beauty in everything. even in our darkest moments, even in sadness, even in grief. i think we all have a gift with our creativity, because we can put the emotions we have into words and share them with people.  

⸻ (original post here)

[yassifiedwelder]

I have been brainstorming soooo much for this #Spidersona thing I have been doing research and working out character arcs and designs and back stories with friends. I really want music to have a major roll in this. I’m thinking I could create a playlist and mess around with those Spotify codes to create a code in the book each person could scan and that song could play as they read through the next couple of panels.

I think I’m mainly posting about this to record it. I’ve never felt this was about a project or idea and I really think I could flush this out into something tangible. I technically have all of the knowledge and skill to work through this and create a physical copy of this graphic novel/idk “interactive” multimedia experience lmao.

Anywho, if anyone happens to see this please drop some songs/playlists for inspiration below. Go obscure, I’m talking like 3 weird recordings on YouTube from a German club obscure, but also I don’t mind the classics (I do plan to have a badass helicopter scene involving all of these mutant freedom fighters to #CCR .)

Here’s some songs I have ideas for rn

THESE ARE THE VIBESSS!

If anyone bothers to read this far hello! Welcome to this virtual project log. I have a tendency to ramble when I’m in a creative mood so after I have that time I like to sit back and reflect on what I’ve learned and write it all down and share it looking for comments questions and ideas. So I hope you like it!

The first video is the amount of pages so far, (the post right before this) I am planning on trying to digitize and rewrite the first “Issue” as a readable post on here so I’m gonna get started on that’s soon. I’m taking a lot of inspirations from Zine culture and alternative comics, body horror ideas from things like the Fly and Johnny the Homocidal maniac, all set to a soundtrack built off of the foundations of rock and the oddity’s of today. The color palate is as if the album cover for the Mountains Goats’ “Goths” came to life, with a formatting similar to one of my favorite books “My favorite thing is monsters” (look it uppppp)

Also, HEY MR. MOUSE! I’m not trying to make money off this, I’m just trying to make some fun art and share it with the world. BUT if you wanna use my characters,hmu (I am delusional) we can work out a deal, have your People call my people.

But that also goes to anyone else out there who wants to work together, my dms are open . . . (Mostly to bots rn)

OH Kay back to it . . . .

In the next pictures are some character designs that are very very very very much inspired by my friends. They’re strange enough that unless you know me by name then you would never get it Lmao . . . But the characters are kinda cool. I really tried to use actual habits and adaptations that these animals have in real life compared to how the human body would have to accommodate for its ability to defy nature. Planning for this to be kinda gory. I’m excited.

Also PSA I know I’m not an amazing artist, I’m going more for story and style over photo realism idk, this is just for my enjoyment, thank you for your time 💖💖💖 to help keep track I’m gonna tag all of these with #OnetaAquatica I’m excited to explore this story and world.

[basileafpitch]

carry on au where everything’s the same except for during the make-out-in-front-of-fire-sleepover chapter sleepover by hayley kiyoko plays

[alfredolover119]

zukka fic rec list (canon era)

howdy! i’ve been collecting zukka fics i like since uhhh june and now i am sharing my lists with the world. i’m splitting it into three posts so it hopefully wont be too long. the first one, this one, is canon era fics! the other two will be post-canon and modern au. [side note!! if youd like a specific type of rec list,, i.e. soulmate au, fake dating, ambassador sokka,, hmu and i’ll post a list !!]

within this post, the fics are in word count order! also, if you’d like a soundtrack for your reading, i might recommend my zukka playlist :^) happy reading!

my heart in two by @ymnkn

-2438 words, teen

-end of season 3, bed sharing, fluff

Sokka laughs, and he doesn’t let go of Zuko’s hand, and Zuko doesn’t let go of Sokka’s hand, and.

Zuko. Zuko thinks he might be okay with this.

and where you go, i will go too (yes, now i am a part of you) by @aguecheek

-4464 words, teen

-western air temple, soulmate au, mutual pining, first kiss

Soulmate AU Where you see in grayscale until you hear your soulmate laugh for the first time. Sokka laughs a lot, loud, proud, and bright. Zuko...barely even smiles.

we had a moment, we had a summertime by @goldrushzukka

-7145 words, general

-ba sing se tea shop, sorta canon compliant in a missing scenes way

Sokka shrugs. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You get captured and killed by the Fire Nation,” Toph provides.

“They won’t execute me in a tea shop,” Sokka says around a sudden lump in his throat. “That’d be bad for business.”

A Father’s Perspective by Kalira

-9600 words, teen

-starts at boiling rock, hakoda pov

What Hakoda sees when he watches his son, from after his rescue from the Boiling Rock to beyond the end of the Great War.

beautiful things by @i-love-your-light

-10586 words, teen

-end of season 3, artist!sokka, pining, fluff, getting together

Across the campfire, Toph cracked a joke and Zuko bit back a laugh, a small smile curving across his face.

Sokka was hit with the overwhelming urge to draw.

Moving Mountains by @thefangirlingdead

-64074 words, mature

-set during and after canon, soulmate au, somewhat canon compliant, slowburn, mutual pining, unrequited love but not actually, angst with a happy ending

Soulmates are chosen by the spirits and can hear each other’s thoughts. Sokka thinks it’s cheesy and dumb. Zuko thinks it’s poetic justice that he doesn’t have one because he doesn’t deserve it. Cruel irony is finding out that the prince of the Fire Nation (and the person currently hunting you) is your soulmate.

Blue by @hollypunkers

-192682 words, teen, graphic depictions of violence

-set during season 2, blue spirit zuko, secret identity, fluff and angst, canon divergence, homophobia, angst with a happy ending

Iroh insists they create a new life and identity in Ba Sing Se. Zuko wants nothing more than to bide his time until his next opportunity to return home, until he realizes ‘Lee’ can get away with things Zuko never could. 

Zuko dons the mantle of the Blue Spirit again only to lose his focus when the Avatar comes to the city. This time, however, his attention is drawn to the annoying Southern Tribe warrior.

[deonideatta]

hi hi i heard you like chief kim and i'm here to get all the intel on why it's a good drama 😊 and what you love about park jae bum's other dramas 😊 pls let me know if there's romance bc that's the oxygen i breathe when i watch a show 💕

Hello!!! Thank you for asking me about Chief Kim!!!! I can go on about it for ages lol. This got a bit long so i’m putting it under a cut

Chief Kim (aka Good Manager) is a comedy office drama with 20 eps, and it aired in 2017. There isn’t a main romance plotline, but don’t let that put you off! It’s an incredible drama in so many ways. (tho there is a subtle romance side plot, but it doesn’t involve the main character and it’s never the main focus, though it is cute). It does feature a bromance that was so great that the two actors literally won an award for it tho lol, so there’s also that!

In a way, the general premise is somewhat similar to Vincenzo in that it’s the main character and an unlikely team of others fighting a big corporation. The comedic tone is also more or less the same. The drama follows Kim Seong Ryong (the titular Chief Kim, played by Namgoong Min), a man with a talent for handling numbers who goes from running a seedy accounting firm to quite accidentally becoming a champion of employees rights in one of the biggest corporations in the country. He originally joins the company with the goal of embezzling a lot money and moving abroad, but he gets swept up in office politics surrounding high executives and the sinister goings on surrounding the position he was recruited for, as well as the shady things the higher-ups want him to do and the suspicion of the other members of his department. Eventually he starts to work alongside them to fight the corruption of the higher ups, and quickly becomes the bane of top management’s existence by being so incredibly annoying that they begin to regret hiring him.

It’s the kind of drama that really gets you to laugh, while still being incredibly heartwarming. The main character is so unashamedly funny, and the character dynamics are all so warm, and none of it ever seems forced. The first tag for the drama on MyDramaList is “character development”, and that says a lot! There’s so much growth that goes on for all the characters, even some of the villains! It’s especially funny because to begin with all the good things Kim Seong Ryeong does are completely by accident, and he’s annoyed but also pleased with all the attention it gets him. Over time he begins to own it, and begins to actively try to stand up to the corrupt people at the top of the company. The other highlight for me besides the humor is definitely the characters. From the eccentric main character, to the no-nonsense second in command in his department Yoon Ha Kyung, to the aggressive finance director Seo Yul who is always eating (one of my all time favourite characters, played by 2PM’s Junho), to the janitor lady who always roasts everyone, there isn’t a single dull character, whether good or bad. And Seo Yul gets one of the best character arcs I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. You get to watch the characters struggle and triumph, and you feel for them because their struggles feel so real, and the drama really gets you invested in them. You see the ways in which they fight to survive as normal working class citizens and you want them to win.

It differs from Vincenzo in that the main character isn’t considered evil and loses his less savoury traits over the course of the drama (his character arc is one of becoming a more upstanding citizen), and the message is one of fighting against corporate greed using the corporate system against itself in order to make things better for the average working citizen. But there’s the same plotting, and the same feeling of rooting for the protagonist team to win as you watch them plot and plan. I never rewatch things, but i’ve rewatched Chief Kim twice already and i’m looking forward to rewatching it again soon (just writing about it is making me want to rewatch it right now lol). It especially hits well for me because i love office dramas, and the humor and the bromance are just right. (Also, not entirely related, but it’s the first drama Kim Seonho was in!)

Another Park Jaebum drama i can definitely recommend is The Fiery Priest! It’s also a comedy action drama with 20 eps (released in 2019), and it follows Kim Hae Il (Kim Nam Gil), a catholic priest with a real temper, as he works to solve the mystery surrounding the death of a senior priest. No romance there either, but it’s got the same humor as Chief Kim and Vincenzo, and the same overarching found family trope (that really shines for this one). It’s darker than Chief Kim, but not as dark as Vincenzo. The plot is very intriguing, and it’s the kind of drama you feel compelled to keep watching to see what happens next. And the host of characters in that drama is still one of my favourites to this day. Every character was incredibly written, and they all played vital roles in the overall story. Again, lots of character development all round, and great character arcs not just for the main character (even for a few of the villains!). Plus it was lovely to watch the various characters interact, get closer, and build relationships. Such an iconic squad. Not to mention how funny it is?? And the fight scenes??? In fact, I enjoyed it so much that when I checked Park Jaebum’s page on MyDramaList after watching it around June last year and saw Vincenzo as an upcoming project, I added it to my plan to watch list immediately even though there was only a single line of synopsis lol. It’s also got an absolute banger of a soundtrack!

When you think about it, all three (Chief Kim, TFP and Vincenzo) can be simplified to “guy with dubious past sets out to fight corruption and creates a great support circle in the process”. All three are dramas of finding people who care about you and are willing to fight alongside you, and fighting for your convictions/what you think is right. Each main character starts out as a somewhat solitary figure, and you get to watch as they each find people who are willing to fight alongside them and support them. What exactly those specific convictions are varies in each drama, but Park Jaebum writes the character development arcs incredibly each time, and the relationships between the characters are so real and so satisfying to watch. And yet the integrity of the main character in each drama is never compromised either, it’s shown that they can grow and become better without losing themselves. The growth is also in the way that they learn to work with and rely on others, because teamwork makes the dream work. And then to cap it all off he lets them have victories, and he makes it SO satisfying??? There are highs and there are lows, and you feel all of those right there with the characters, which makes the victories feel so so good. In each we see the ensemble cast get involved with the fight and the plotting, and we get to see all their epic plans and their execution, and the victories they win that build up over time. And it’s so satisfying to me! I love it a lot, just thinking about it is making me smile lol. It also shows how well humor and darker/more serious plotlines/events are balanced in the dramas, neither is compromised in favour of the other, but it always works so well that the humor never feels forced or out of place. As someone who doesn’t like overbearingly dark shows, I really appreciate that. They all give you lots to laugh at, while not losing any of the plot to the funny.

Of course there are differences, notably the romance, and the fact that Vincenzo is bad vs bad rather than good vs bad like the other two. They deal more with redemption (especially The Fiery Priest), but that works for the stories that are being told, and it’s very well executed.

It’s worth noting that Park Jaebum also wrote Good Doctor and 4 seasons of God’s Quiz. I haven’t checked those out yet, but I’ve heard good things about all of them. He also wrote Blood, I haven’t seen that one either but opinions seem to be split on how good it was. All of those are medical dramas (which is the reason I haven’t watched them lol, i can’t stand medical dramas) from before 2017, when he wrote Chief Kim. It seems he’s been on a roll since then, good for him and good for us lol. You can see everything he’s written on his MyDramaList page.

Overall I enjoyed the Park Jaebum dramas I have seen for first and foremost the comedy, but also for the warmth of the character relationships and for how well developed/written each character is. And I love how he balances the humor with more poignant/darker moments, I laughed a lot watching all three dramas, but I’ve cried over each of them as well. It’s a good balance to have, it gives you a good plot to be interested in, but doesn’t keep you stressed and sombre the whole way through. I’ve seen people say that Vincenzo wouldn’t be as good if it wasn’t so wacky, and I fully agree. It’s the same for both TFP and Chief Kim, and that balance is definitely what I appreciate most in Park Jaebum’s dramas. I know I will laugh, but I also know I will get an incredible plot and incredible characters, and that’s really important for me. Plus I know I can trust that there will be a good ending because the writer cares about his characters.

I definitely recommend checking out both TFP and Chief Kim after Vincenzo is done, especially since they’re so similar in terms of comedic tone and basic plot direction. If you ever get to watching either of them feel free to hmu to chat about it!! There’s lots of plot stuff that can be can discussed.

lol this got v long (i have lots to say about how much i love these dramas haha), but I hope it’s helpful!!!

[emphasis-all-mine]

hi mem!! a few months ago i read your fic--the one where james griffin couldn't help his parents falling in love--and i fell in love with it. it makes me unbearably happy in this nostalgic, melancholy way. just absolutely beautiful. now, im starting to write my very first fic--an adam-centric adashi piece--and i'm wondering if you have any tips for a first-time fic writer? plot tips? characterization tips? background music tips? coffee tips? anything you have, i'll take. thank you so much!! ily

Thank you!! Somewhere A Clock is Ticking is one of my fave things I've ever written and I legit cried during both the writing and editing process of that story so it makes me so glad you enjoyed it!

I'm really excited for this fic! I think Adam is such a good character to start with if you're working on your first because we know very little of his canon persona–and that means you get to unleash all your creativity to flesh him out. He can be from any background, speak any language, have little or a lot of family, etc. I love getting to create an Adam-sona anytime I write him in. Sometimes he's a calming partner, a stubborn and stern teacher, or a wine-uncle fun idea machine.

I have a LOT OF TIPS but I'll try to keep this to the point because really I could ramble for days on this subject so feel free to message me or hmu again for any follow up:

Write a story that you would want to read. I know this seems obvious but the easiest things for me to write are when I think "I want to read THIS in a fic and it's so specific that I will just go ahead and make it for myself and not care if anyone else likes it." Write for your own enjoyment, first and foremost.

Make a soundtrack first. I can only speak for myself but when I set up a story I also set up a playlist in my head and I write while listening to it. Sometimes I think of it like a movie soundtrack and different songs belong to different sections. IDK it helps me when I have to switch tone or POV or write a lot of action without dialogue? I sometimes do use those relaxing beats to study to soundtracks/streams, if that helps? I say try to avoid podcasts bc they can muss up your concentration with dialogue but to each their own. Hit shuffle and keep an eye (ear?) on what music works best for you!

Give your character a weird quirk or a strange habit or a funny story their parent/bff/sibling can tell from their childhood. Some of my personal favorite headcanons are: Keith loves Dolly Parton, Lance attempted to eat a jellyfish off the beach as a child, Allura puts milk in before tea, Shiro has a secret terrible sense of humor and can't hold his liquor, etc. You can even make one up, the more specific the better. Right now I'm poking around with a story idea involving Lance being really into limericks.

You are going to project at some point, and that is so okay. Put a story in about character A and character B doing a silly thing you and your friend/cousin/whoever did when you were a kid. Make that quirk be something you do (like maybe you're a 30-something college graduate that still lisps and stutters when she tries to say the word 'specific' haha what? Who?) But seriously, stories that have a grounding in reality help the reader suspend disbelief especially if you're working with a fantasy/scif-fi canon or AU. Writing Adam as a time-traveling were-panther? Make him that, but he's also super-into Magic: The Gathering and he teaches all his fellow time-traveling were-cats how to play and now they all kick his ass and he sometimes regrets it. It gives your reader a way to relate to your character and they'll be more willing to suspend disbelief for zany hijinks or they won't see someone that's too perfect or too invincible.

Your audience can infer more than you realize, so don't be afraid to not tell them if something is funny or sad or beautiful. Just write what it is and let them make their conclusions. Tell them that the first kiss between two characters was messy and wet and someone bit the other's lip but then they rest their foreheads together and laugh and just breathe, hands intertwining. You don't have to say 'they did so romantically', because if you describe a thing that you think is sweet or funny or romantic in an honest way, it reads through.

To quote the Beastie Boys, I like my sugar with coffee and cream? But yeah, always good to have prepared some writing snacks and beverages and take breaks!

Hope this helps! Good luck!!

[oikawasbliss]

ADMIN:

⇢ the name is luvi !! I go by she/her pronouns !! i am also a minor

⇢ hogwarts house is hufflepuff !!

⇢ timezone is gmt+8

⇢ filo🇵🇭

⇢ i'm a scorpio. my mbti is istp-a

⇢ birthday is on the 25th of october

⇢ selfships are luvinishi(taichi) and vikawa(oikawa) !

⇢ my favorites are still suna, kita, tendou yamaguchi <3

⇢ favs from other animes are mikasa from aot, hawks, bakugou and mirio from bnha, and more !!

⇢ plum#8365 on discord if you wanna hmu . anitwt will remain a secret.

⇢ i don't have any character kins yet. feel free to kin me with characters!

⇢ if it's kpop the i only listen to ggs. i stan: gfriend, twice, itzy and loona !!

⇢ musical soundtracks from broadway musicals are my thing to !! i mostly listen to waitress and heathers.

BLOG:

⇢ this blog was created on 11/04/20

⇢ hiatus started in june until last week of september

⇢ this blog consists of reader-insert HQ fics, daily rambles, suna rintarou, oikawa tooru, kawanishi taichi, and interactions(hopefully).

⇢ the blog's past urls so hopefully some of you may remember me: hanzwrites → oinkanna → sunnieshie → howluvish → viichi

[bespectacledbun]

Hi yes it is I

Your local bgm maker

Made this with loads of help from @iamaikotachibana - thank you so much! And back to writing the next segment. 

[loser-user-noaccuser]

TAG GAME

I was tagged by @gustingirl

Name: Shae

Sign: Virgo ♍️

Height: i can’t remember in CM but i am 5’3 and a half

Time: 1:49 am

Birthday: 7th September

Favourite Band/Artist: Greta Van Fleet, Green Day, Nirvana, ACDC, INXS,MCR, FOB (although I didn’t like mania 😬) The 1975, Taylor Swift, Maisie Peters, plus way more

Last Movie: Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Last Show: Currently watching House MD (thanks to Nella)

When I created this blog:This blog specifically i made mid 2020(?) as a Taylor Swift blog but i did have a blog back when i was like 14 that was a one direction blog but I deleted that and thought i was done with tumblr

What i post: dude i don’t even have a clue, Greta van Fleet, (music in general but them mostly) Book stuff, movies and shows i am into, its pretty much multifandom

Other blogs: no i am too lazy to keep up with that

Do i get asks: rarely and i am kinda sad about it hmu!

Followers: i thought nobody cared about numbers on tumblr

Average hours of sleep: oh god i’d say 5-6 idk my sleeping pattern has always been wild my family jokes that when i go to sleep they bet on when i will wake up

Instruments: buckle in. I went to a performing arts type of independent school so there is quite a bit. Guitar, Ukulele, Violin, (a bit of) Bass, Trumpet, Trombone, and as Josh would say “i play the vocals” too

What I’m wearing: 😏 Black Bike shorts and a crop

Dream Job: As a kid i wanted to be an Archaeologist. Now i want to work with animals specifically local wildlife or do something in the tourism side of things but I’m indecisive as fuck

Dream Trip: Roadtrip around Australia or travel around Europe and stay with family in scotland for a bit

Favourite Songs: these are some current repeats for me.

By Miss Taylor Alison Swift: Evermore, Tis The Damn Season, Sad Beautiful Tragic, Bye Bye Baby, Back to December & The Moment I knew

Blonde- Maisie Peters, Whatsername- Green Day, plus the whole Newsies soundtrack

I tag anyone who wants to do this bc i cbf picking people

[vroenis]

2020 Music In Review

When this was a draft, it opened with a bit about me not writing, but then I started playing board games again and wrote two bits on board games. In the trashfire that 2020 was (add “trashfire” to dictionary, no I did not mean “trash fire”), and 2021 continues to be, somehow I ended up getting back into board games. Actually there are good and logical reasons I returned to them and if you’re interested in that, I go into some of it in those journals, but more interesting is just playing the games so you should totally HMU if you’re local, sorry I don’t do virtual/digital, I like handling physical pieces and sharing food.

The most natural way for me to wrap a year for me is in music and since Melbourne locked down in March, I spent a lot of time working from home and listening on my own gear which I can’t express enough the joy at being able to do - firstly at having good reference transducers and secondly not having to listen to trash radio.

Writing about art is always a bit weird but it’s good fun so we do it anyway so let’s write some words about art. There are three main ways I engage with music in no particular order - more or less however I happen to notice them;

Music and musicianship - tonal and rhythmic composition

Technical production - recording, editing/manipulionation, processing/production, mixing and balance, and mastering

Song-writing/lyrics - should there be any - excludes vocal performance as this is covered under the first one.

To get weirder about it, I tend to have both emotional and also pragmatic responses to those three things separately so that means there’s a wackadoo matrix of 6 criteria I seem to be assessing every piece of music I encounter against and yep, that’s a thing I do, all the time, every time. The better a piece of music is, tho, the more the line between the emotional and pragmatic blurs as the overall quality of the work is established. I might begin with an initial pragmatic appreciation of an excellent mix and balance, and technical execution of a recording and production, then come to get a feel for how emotional a work is - and vice-versa. Sometimes on rare occasions, it all happens at the same time - an album is just a smashing work of excellence in every way and I just love every aspect of it more over time.

It’s worth mentioning I don’t really have any great axe to grind with pop music - there has always been and continues to be great pop, and good pop isn’t by any means easy music to create. For me at least, and likely many people, what destroys pop as a listening experience is repetition which usually isn’t under the listener’s control, but an unfortunate side-effect of the underlying culture that sustains pop as an industry. I still appreciate and admire so much about pop-music and always keep a little in my collection from each decade. No matter what, always remind yourself that the kids are OK and that there’s always great pop-music around - stay in touch with it. Some of it is truly awesome, and I use the superlative with sincerity.

Albums Of The Year

A few things happened on the way to me actually getting to write this journal, including some surgery (I’m fine), but also I ended up nominating no less than 4 Albums Of The Year. I think they deserve their own lengthier write-ups, in a weirdly me thing to do, I feel like I want to talk less about them and you should just go and listen to them but they have been getting a lot of air-time on my channels - in any case, here’s a lazylink to the instagram post I did for them. They’re all great and they feature in the lists coming in this entry so give them a listen, they’re outstanding.

Personal Charts

When I set out to write a musical summary of the year, I went to my last.fm page to see what I’d listened to by number of plays polled. As mentioned, given the Covid lockdown and working from home so much, I’ve actually gotten to register a lot more of my listening on the site whereas in general so much of my listening happens offline, so to speak, be it in the car or on my mp3 player. This year has also seen a serious shift in my buying habits shift entirely to Bandcamp for a few reasons; Google shut down their Play store in favour of streaming because naturally it favours them and not artists - it also just makes sense for them from infrastructure and administrative perspectives, but also I just did more and more research and naturally found more and more artists and Bandcamp just made sense. I want to write a digest as to why you should do the same but I feel like people need to find their own way there or approach me directly so the motivation comes from them. Streaming is bad for artists and while I and indeed artists don’t want you to close your premium accounts just yet because closing any revenue streams to artists in any way is bad, I encourage you to do some research into just how much revenue there is in streaming, and what your expectations are for how you think the artists you love so much are supposed to make a living. I guess if your engagement level is fairly low, or the culture you’re into is pop-music, then this is the end of the discussion and that’s OK, we don’t need to take it any further. If you’re in any way curious about what this issue is, this video by Benn Jordan is a great place to start.

There are two charts I’d like to share - one is my top 10 albums I’ve chosen, the other is the same albums by number of plays as per my last.fm polling. These aren’t the top 10 albums I polled, mind-you. Sometimes I listen to an album a whole bunch just because I’m into it or because it slaps, but it isn’t one I’d nominate as an album that encapsulates the year.

You’ll immediately notice not every album was released in 2020, however my conditions are that they either had to have been released close enough to 2020 that I’d have done heavy listening in the year, or I had to have purchased them in 2020 so they were new to me in the year.

Here are the 10 albums I chose;

And here they are by number of plays polled in 2020 - bear in mind I probably played one or two favourite tracks a few times more, so they don’t neatly divide by number of tracks listed on the album;

A few immediate things to note;

- Dreams Are Not Enough is significantly underrepresented because I don’t listen to it at my PC while I work. In general, I definitely listen to this far more in environments offline, but also it’s not exactly an all occasions album given its tone and atmosphere, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t - give it a listen and find out.

- La Favière on the other hand is more or less a bit of a party so I play it a lot… yet when it comes to my personal rankings, it’s not that I like it less per se, it’s just that I love the other albums more - tons of respect to Iversen. It still made 10th on a list of hundreds of albums and netted 161 plays out of thousands of files I have.

- Had I done this kind of list in 2019 and known about Reid Willis, I suspect The Longing Device would have been an Album Of The Year then. It was a dead ringer for an Album Of The Year for me this year except then he released Mother Of and that is an absolute killer, so he outdid himself and I selected that instead. Reid Willis is a genius.

- There’s a long story as to why I only bought Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack for To The Wonder in 2020 but at least I was delayed long enough to not produce any more plastic, given my original intention once upon a time was to get it on CD. In any case, I had to buy it on iTunes and was bedstricken from illness for days after. iTunes is cursed.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough (October 2019)

In 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv released their album Immolate Yourself and then Charles Cooper died. I didn’t actually find out about his death until after I’d heard the album a few times over, but the album stayed with me for the 10 years to the new album as a landmark like no other. In part for the mourning of Charles, but simultaneously and separately as something that stood apart as some sound for my life that no other music could touch. Maybe The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation, maybe Darkside’s Psychic, but each of those in different ways.

10 years later and Joshua Eustis continues his long journey and releases Dreams Are Not Enough in the Telefon Tel Aviv name. After my first listen, I tweeted to him that I felt like deleting the rest of my music collection which we had a laugh about (he’s a very sociable person, by the way, if you’re not an asshole - he’s also someone you can learn a lot about the industry from). The thing is - I want to have these kinds of exaggerated reactions to the art I engage with - I want them to be world-destroying. Sure, not every piece of art has to be immense and euphoric and devastating, but it can’t all be run-of-the-mill either.

It’s difficult for me to describe Dreams Are Not Enough in practical terms, it is still a Telefon album, it is also Telefon without Charles, it’s also mourning him, is it moving on in his absence? It is definitely its own art for you to engage with as a unique work, to you the individual. It’s uniquely Telefon Tel Aviv in a way that no other electronic artist does the same way - it feels a specific way and there are times when no other music will do. One of my running jokes is that Porpentine’s Howling Dogs and Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero will be my Game(s) Of The Year every year forever and Dreams Are Not Enough now with Immolate Yourself are going to last 10, 20 years - longer - as Albums Of The Year forever too because there’s just never anything else like them.

Reid Willis - The Longing Device (January 2019)

The good thing about having made my choices earlier in 2020 is that Reid WIllis’ Mother Of wasn’t out when I wrote-up the list, so I get to talk about The Longing Device.

Reid Willis was an absolutely random find on Bandcamp. Occasionally I like to dive into subgenres and just go hunting. You can imagine that 9 times out of 10 this is a fruitless endeavour and might think this is frustrating but I really enjoy doing it as an exercise in critical listening. By whatever turn of divine Bandcamp listing, I came across the first chronological album he has up, Crude Healing (2016) and from memory listened to four tracks before instant-buying his entire discography available. I did go hunting on the Google Play store before it was shuttered and buy the most recent album from 2013, The Sunken Half listed from his older works before he jumped over to Bandcamp for all his newer albums and it’s definitely a transitional work to what he does now and well worth having. While Crude Healing initially blew me away, The Longing Device is a more mature album that has been more carefully shaped, skills having been honed and focussed into a less raw and yet more powerful sound. Very rarely am I ever an “I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff” kind of person, in general I tend to go with an artist when they evolve and grow unless on occasion they go in a completely different direction in which case hey - I respect it but sometimes it’s just not something I feel.

Here Willis’ orchestrations are careful, beautiful and languished in the right moments - cut with beats and edits, and the beats and edits likewise deftly cut with orchestrations. This is such a stunning exhibition of creativity, it’s one of the more esoteric examples of my music collection and also in some ways perhaps one of the more approachable works. Then in November Willis released Mother Of where he just takes everything to the next level.

Mat Zo - Illusion Of Depth (October 2020)

In July of 2020, Above & Beyond released their ongoing regular compilation Anjunabeats volume 15 and finished the first disc with a bangin’ Mat Zo track called Problems, an instant favourite of mine as soon as I heard it. It’s a tough year for DJs and musos all round not being able to tour, Josh Eustice and many others have been doing year-round commentary about irresponsible alleged “underground” gigs have nothing to do with the old-school spirit of underground at all and have turned into superspreader events, and how publishers and labels haven’t supported artists through Covid. Leading up to October, Anjuna and Mat Zo promote his forthcoming album and I have to admit, I’m pretty hyped and then it drops.

Holy shit.

In a year of such terrible events, this felt like such a timely dose of positivity that arrived at just the right time. I wrote a whole damn entry for this on instragram, and it’s one of my Albums Of The Year, but far out the digest of this album. On one hand, it’s a hugely technically accomplished work - it’s a diverse exhibition of styles, musicianship, stellar production, and absolutely pristine mix and balance - on the other hand, it’s just an absolute fucken banger-riot-party of an album. The album stands up to a clinical listening on reference transducers, it’s such a delight to audition and examine in every way, but you can set all of that aside and just enjoy the experience, front to back through the tracks in order and as an album, that’s becoming quite rare. There are levels of production discipline on display in this album, especially for electronic music in difficult mixing environments with potentially cluttered frequency ranges that a lot of artists need to learn from, yet Maz Zo executes with ease. This has a lot to give no matter who you are, whether you want to sit down and listen, dance all night or go for a drive - a word of warning, it might make you want to drive fast!

It’s also worth noting that Mat toured this album virtually in Minecraft in order to be Covid-safe and that is absolutely freaken amazing.

Hanan Townshend - To The Wonder (April 2013)

Not the best choice of cover-art, but to be fair, no-one likes Terrence Malick films so it doesn’t really matter. Like most things, getting into music tends to be multifaceted. To The Wonder is my favourite Malick film and yes, I love many of them (you can check the Film Notes page), probably because it’s the most intimate and grounded of his narratives. I still like the more grand and abstract stories he tells, they’re very much my bag, too, but To The Wonder really is a simple story about people told from a closeness that is for some perhaps uncomfortable, but I love that closeness. There’s a dream-like quality to Malick’s filmmaking and indeed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography that is both surreal and organic that makes the film feel very real and then like recollection once it’s done. Hanan Townshend’s music perfectly matches it, and then like all good soundtracks transcends the purpose for which it was written and can be applied to life outside of its matching media. There is a certain framing I have in my mind and at times, with the way I quite literally see, that makes me cue this soundtrack. Very few other soundtracks have this kind of power - Kenji Kawaii’s work for Ghost In The Shell (inclusive of Innocence), Hajime Mizogughi’s Jin-Roh and Cliff Martinez’ Solaris would be some of the others.

Daniel McCagh - Altered States (April 2020)

Another semi-random Bandcamp find, I was chuffed to learn that Daniel McCagh is from Albury, NSW, Australia. It’s always amazing to find local artists who are this astonishingly talented. I tend to associate Australian musicians at the not-quite-there-yet level of art and still do. That’s not a criticism of the artists themselves, it’s a criticism of our government and their backwards attitude towards arts funding and economics in this country. We are a developed country in the age of the internet where information and culture is shared instantly but we deny our people opportunities in so many ways - in education, facilities, commerce and economic infrastructure - the state of internet services in this country for a start is appalling and has been behind global standards forever. It will take us so much time, funds, resources and coordination to catch-up and of-course the longer we wait, the greater the cost and each successive government makes their excuses as to why we can never quite afford to do things right.

Props to individuals who can make it stick, tho, and Daniel McCagh is one of them. It’s probably shockingly unfair to hold someone up on a pedestal every time they do well but I can’t help it - Altered States is on par with Reid Willis’ and other dark ambient/electronic works or whatever genre you want to put them into. On Bandcamp these darker synth and drone-centric artists are a dime a dozen and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good but finding works that truly stand out in excellence can be difficult. The low play-count is due to having only found and bought the album quite late, but it goes into rotation fairly often and it’s a growing genre in my collection.

The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form (May 2020)

The closest thing to pop music to hit this list, NOACF was going to appear at some point - just getting pipped at the finish-line by Reid Willis, all told. I listened to this in the car quite a bit when I was still in rotation in the office before full lockdown.

Writing about The 1975 will be a Thing - either you’ll know something about them or nothing at all. For me, I guess I engage with them entirely differently from superfans - I’m in my late 30s so it won’t surprise you that I don’t have a TikTok account nor do I op a Spotify account and I’m not active at all on Facebook altho neither are gen Z. That said, I’m not entirely sure who their core fanbase will be - they don’t strike me as chart-topping, TikTok everpresent pop-culture icons. Their lead singer certainly has the awareness of pop-culture to communicate with their fan-base to keep up, but they don’t seem to engage at the same level of the lists you see on say, Todd in the Shadows - but I’ve not watched enough of him to know if he’s ever mentioned them.

Anyway I’m enough of a musician (read: snob) to dig their lofty musical stuff - it’s the perfect follow-up and follow-on from ABIIOR and I Like It When You Sleep... before that. Their sound stays uniquely theirs while slowly evolving with contemporary sounds, all the while the production stays top-notch and I’m always pleased with what I hear from a mixing and balance perspective. It also sort of launched with one of the most exciting singles I’ve heard in a while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) which has to be one of the absolute best recreations of the quintessential 90’s sound yet with contemporary production discipline I’ve ever heard. Many have tried yet most have failed. I always have so much respect when an artist can nail this kind of thing because it’s immensely difficult to do and I’m so proud of The 1975 for pulling this off. All of their genre homages and tilts on this album - actually on all of their albums since I Like It When You Sleep… have been stellar and I continue to be impressed.

I’m also completely onboard with their performative behaviour - they remind me of the angsty political U2 et al of old, but with the necessary contemporary tilt we need. Matty as a front-person is grounded, sensible, vulnerable, flawed - been thru some shit and talks openly about it. I don’t care how much of it is genuine, it reads and plays genuinely. I’m not a superfan so I don’t have posters of him on my wall nor hang on every word he says, but if I was 16 or 23 and did, I think he’s saying the right things. Setting that aside because it doesn’t matter, as a late 30’s adult, this album is fucking great and the band is aging, whether the fanbase likes it or not. There is so much creativity in it and I feel like while they play like they don’t care whether anyone comes along with them or not, they actually really sincerely hope we all do - and I also hope we all really do come along with them because I am coming along with them. None of this “play Antichrist” bullshit - leave the past in the past. Play Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied. They just cancelled their 2021 tour plans due to Covid which was a really good move, and confirmed a new album in the works, and I can’t wait to hear what they have coming.

The Midnight - Monsters (July 2020)

One of the most exciting releases last year, I was amped for the drop and was anticipating another solid, top-notch contemporary synthwave album from who I regard to be one of the very best in the genre. They’d released America Online some months prior which I really loved but it didn’t really indicate what the album was going to be like. Monsters ended up being waaaaay better than I expected - and I expected it to be really great. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision by the band that perhaps the synthwave space was perhaps wearing out the 80’s a little bit - even pop-music was starting to take nibbles at the genre albeit pretty poorly by comparison, not that radio-punters would know it. With the new album tho, we’re taken into this wonderful in-between of not fully 90’s but not wholly 80’s either and even some contemporary r’n’b thrown in there but always stellar production and it’s just a massive album. It’s like a film you watch that ends up being an instant favourite you wish you could watch again for the first time because that first experience was so great. EVERYTHING lands perfectly in this album… with perhaps the exception of the lyric 

“friends become lovers under covers” 

in the song Prom Night because celebrating teens being sexually active is probably not something I cherish too much but hey, whaddayagonnado some things are just facts LET’S TURN THIS INTO A TEACHING OPPORTUNITY ABOUT CONSENT let’s not at least not right now.

Jeremy Blake - Object Permanence (December 2019)

Jeremy Blake is also known as Red Means Recording and he is a Synthlord. He has a YouTube channel and I am a superfan of his, so much so that I wrote a feature about him right here in this journal. I have a lot of his albums and Object Permanence is one of my favourites.

Jeremy is the definition of good faith. Everything he does is done with the intention of creating goodness in this world, in whatever way it can, somehow. Whether it’s just by listening to something that you might find pleasing, or whether it’s watching a video intended to help you create music on a piece of hardware or learn about software or licensing or platforms, distribution or business in some way. I happen to really dig the kinds of music styles he’s into as we seem to have had similar roots when it comes to some of the rock and electronic music we grew up on and have been into in our music lives, so the music he makes now really gels well with me. It was super difficult to choose between the album he released before this called Soft Music To Do Nothing To and Object Permanence but ultimately I think this is the right choice as far as an exhibition of his talent goes. Soft Music is still great, it’s more of a long jam he performed with only three pieces of gear which is pretty amazing and I listen to it all the time, but Object Permanence has some distinct tracks in varying styles I really get into.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s YouTube channel as an entry-point into his style, but if you’re a synth-head and like beats, breaks and groovy bleeps and bloops, you definitely won’t go astray by dropping into any one of his albums on Bandcamp.

The Paper Kites - On The Corner Where You Live (September 2018)

File The Paper Kites under “holy shit another Australian artist that isn’t rubbish” and from Melbourne, my hometown at that. In 2018, they split their new tracks effectively into two albums which works really well. The first is called On The Train Ride Home which is wholly downtempo and almost entirely acoustic with no drums, the second is this album and is a more energetic. I don’t actually prefer one over the other and have just made myself a playlist with contributions from other artists that only includes songs from On The Train Ride Home, but for this list I chose the second album for its exhibition of the band’s overall breadth of song-writing, performance and production. I guess I associate this sound with bands like Rogue Valley and other north and Pacific Northwest bands in the US but to be fair, I don’t really go hunting for this kind of sound - Nashville?? I don’t associate this very cooled-down acoustic-electric sound with Nashville, it’s not very Country (I have some Country in my collection which probably doesn’t surprise you), it’s almost like ultra-chilled mid-90’s ballad in a sense. Someone will have to tell me what it really is and where to find more but only of this calibre because I’m picky about quality. Google says they’re “folk music, folk rock, indie rock, alternative/indie” and that’s useless so throw that in the bin where it belongs.

This sound is definitely a mood. I hunted thru my entire collection including the aforementioned Rogue Valley and started a first playlist of just this kind of thing. I have the acoustic list done and will do an electric counterpart that will include more material from this album, as well as the one song I bought from Night Traveler called Don’t Forget Me as long as it’s not too energetic, it all depends on what makes it to the final list. This music speaks of drives thru rural landscapes, late nights in the city, time alone or with just one other person, closeness, loneliness, introspection, of long journeys and separation.

Iversen - La Favière (August 2018)

The story of how I got this album is hilarious - one of my gaming friends who buys stuff on Humble Bundle and itch.io and god knows what else tweets me this link and says “hey there’s this synthwave bundle for like $2 you should get it it’s $2 it has all this music in” and as someone who won’t buy bad music for even $2, I go investigating and you can listen to some samples and lo-and-behold, most of it is pretty great. I paid a lot more than $2 as that only got you 4 albums and for another $5 or something, you got another 4 albums plus I always pay more because I want more revenue to go to the contributing artists. I ended up not liking about half of the music on offer but in the bundle I discovered Lost Outrider, Morgan Willis and Iversen, all of which I’ve gone on to buy more music from on Bandcamp. As for La Favière, I bought it again on Bandcamp because I love the album so much and wanted to support the artist - it’s really excellent. Oddly tho, two of the best tracks from it were bonuses that only came with the bundle version and not the Bandcamp version, called Sunset Rider and Visions of Blue, so if you want those, I’m not entirely sure how you can get a hold of them - I’m sure if you contact Josh Iverson and tell him you want to pay for them, he’ll try to sort you out unless there are labels involved in which case, not his fault. Regardless, you still get one of the best chilled synth tracks of all time In Dreams which is worth the price of admission all on its own, it is absolutely epic and you should give it a listen.

Goodbye 2020

Time of writing is Sunday 16th January and what a ride it’s been already, hey. I might still write up my actual Albums Of The Year given two of them didn’t get mentioned - Reid Willis -  Mother Of and Gidge - New Light, so I cheated a bit, but they’re my nominations, awards and lists so I can do whatever I like. I’m always excited about music, both listening with a critical ear and also emotionally engaging with it. There’s never a shortage of good new music or discovering material I hadn’t from years past. Sometimes it feels like wading thru endless fields of dross to find the gold but it’s always there and getting to it is a true delight.

There were honourable mentions and I couldn’t quite get the list to 10 - there are 8. I might write them up but for the moment, here they are in vague order of vagueness. Importance? Order of purchase? I got into Lapalux and Enter Shikari very late in the year. Apparat’s - LP5 is a very special album to me, almost Dreams Are Not Enough special. I do want to talk about how Jacob Collier’s album is both very very good and also not good enough. 

The majority of the music listed here can be purchased on Bandcamp. There are links to most of it on my Bandcamp profile if you want to go hunting - I might add lazylinks later-on if I get the time.

Here is my last.fm full listing for 2020 if you’re curious about that kind of thing. Stats are great.

[micaws-blog]

❝ oh, look it’s micah talkalot, a seventeen year old half blood wizard attending hogwarts. he is a seventh year ravenclaw student. their friends would say they are skilled + tolerant but can also be stubborn + impulsive. they are known around the castle as the diligent. some swear they look like thomas doherty but they would disagree. ( bea, she/her, est.) ❞

hey yall! i’m bea & i have an unhealthy obsession with the black panther soundtrack! i’m currently 18, and i’m in the est. i have a speech to write and a french test tomorrow, so this is gonna be hella quick, but just like this/hmu and we can plot something out ! but also okay his url is micaws bc he’s a ravenclaw and his name’s micah so like the eagles caw and a micah...i couldn’t resist micaws #headass

the grandson of lucinda talkalot, so u kno, quidditch is his Shit. currently keeper for ravenclaw and he’s trying his best to play professionally

growing up, his dad ( the son of lucinda & who fought in the second wizarding war ) drilled into him quidditch & even tho micah LOVES quidditch with his whole heart, he’s always trying to get better and tbh he pushes himself too hard sometimes #tea

like his dad’s side ( the wizarding side ) has always had something to do with quidditch, whether they play it, coaches, refs, fuckin reporters it doesnt matter, the pitch is where the talkalots belong okay

anyways his mum is a muggle and micah’s lowkey a momma’s boy bc while him and his dad bonded over quidditch...that’s all they had in common

his mum’s a spitfire and he writes her ( tho he does talk to his father ) letters bc he misses her sm

 a lot of his personality can be attributed to her bc his dad’s a chill guy, but his mum’s the sassy one, quite the #Savage

like he doesn’t put up with any shit and it creates some problems, esp if someone is being a jerk and talking about his muggle mom ( like momma’s boi on a mission he’ll fight someone ), like he throws hands all the time so he’s served a couple detentions for it

when he first got to hogwarts, he was a hatstall, tied between gryffindor and ravenclaw 

while he’s brave enough to stand up for what he believes in, intelligence is something he treasures the most, which is why he was sorted into ravenclaw

like he’s super duper smart but he doesnt try as hard as nearly any other ravenclaw lbr, he’d rather be on the pitch, not studying

rn i have him as the keeper of the ravenclaw ( i’m the Biggest Headass & forgot to submit it with my follow link im dumb ) 

personality wise he’s a ...come se dice .... an asshole lbr

like he doesn’t mean anything by it, he just...is a moody teenager u know?? graduation is coming up and he just doesnt care anymore

will throw hands with someone if they so much as LOOK at him the wrong way, he needs to Chill

cusses like a SAILOR im so sorry 

my pan boy....is very flirtatious and flirts w everyone and uses that sexc scottish accent to seduce men/women/professors like come on now mike dont do us dirty like this

plus like he’s 6′3-6′4 depending on the shoes, i love me a tol 

he has a solid two (2) friends bc he’s just not rly trusting he’s -,- at everyone tbh

and also this boi needs these connections ok

a best friend tbh ( taken by eleanor wood ) 

ppl he fights i love me some enemies

some exes, good/bad terms i want both

fwb/one night stands ??? this dude doesnt care about relationships he’s just no good okay

quidditch ppl !!! they bond over it u know

give me some tutoring plots u know??? this boi getting forced to tutor someone in astronomy or potions or smth u feel 

just like this and i’ll come harass u for plots mmkay

[dyscomfortzone]

OOOH for the RWBY questions: 1, 3, 5, 7, and 16? c:

1. Favorite RWBY character? Definitely Qrow or Ruby (I actually have a headcanon if you wanna HMU about that

3. Top 3 favorite songs from the RWBY soundtrack? Neon, Let’s Just Live, Red Like Roses !!!!

5. What would your semblance be if you could choose it? Hmm, in the setting, i’d like to have my OC’s semblance, which is to create a temporary hard cover over patches of their skin, or Weiss’s semblance!!!  In day to day use, i’d like Weiss’s still haha, it’s so cool.

7. Which RWBY ship would you like to see become canon? Bumblebee !!!! I just feel like it’s the closest to canon rn. Also White Rose would be good.

16. Do you have a favorite RWBY villain or nah? Well idk if i’d count her as a villain, but Emerald. If we talkin full on villain, i’d say Torchwick. He was quirky.

[dirtynamjams]

K-HipHop and K-R&B Appreciation Post (male ver.)

Hey guys, I’ve been listening to k-hiphop and k-r&b for awhile now, so I figured it was a good time to compile a list of my favorite artists, my favorite songs by them, and what I think about them. Obviously, this is just my opinion and of course it won’t include EVERYONE that I listen to (even if I really enjoyed someone’s album or something like that) because that would genuinely be waaayyyy too long of a post. (im doing this to save both myself and you tbh so just nod your head and act like you agree with this statement thanks). 

PSA: every song title is hyperlinked even if it doesn’t look like it. hmu if one of the links aren’t working.

*music cue* I’M STARTING

DEAN

I have been a fan of Dean since the very beginning, so I’m really happy for him and how far he’s come. He is getting more and more popular and has been more and more active in the performance scene.I really like his flow and the command he expresses over his songs.

If I had to choose a favorite song by him I really can’t because I enjoyed the ENTIRETY of his first mini album, 130 mood trbl. BUY IT GUYS– IT BLESSES MY EARS SO MUCH.

Aaaaanndd as a bonus, I’m going to include some songs he featured on that I really enjoyed:

1. Heize- And July (ft. Dean, DJ Friz)

2. Zico- Bermuda Triangle (ft. Dean, Crush)

3. Suran- 1+1=0 (ft. Dean)

CRUSH

Is there really any need for me to explain why I enjoy Crush’s music? You know those people that you can’t explain why you like their music? Well, he’s one of them for me. He’s Crush, come on. He’s got a cute dog and everything. 

Favorite Crush song? Well, friends, I’m going to have to split it into out of new releases and older released. For the former: Outside (ft. Beenzino) or Woo ah. For the latter: Hug Me (ft. Gaeko) or Sofa. 

Bonus songs that he featured in (I’m not going to include Bermuda Triangle since it’s already in Dean’s section):

1. Sik-K- party(SHUT DOWN) (ft. Crush)

2. DPR LIVE-Laputa (ft. Crush)

3. Dean- what2do (ft. Crush x Jeff Bernat)

ZION.T

(What’s a list with Crush if it hasn’t got Zion.T on it?) I got to see my man Zion.T perform live at KCON17NY this year and I just want to say that he is as amazing live as he is on a soundtrack. I really enjoy his voice and I think that his voice is nothing short of MAGICAL. Also, how could you not like a guy whose (sun)glasses are surgically attached to his face?

It’s not hard for me to choose my favorite Zion.T song: Eat, though, Yanghwa BRDG is a close second.  

Now, for the bonus songs that he’s that he’s featured on:

1. Zico- Eureak (ft. Zion.T)

2. Gaeko- No Make Up (ft. Zion.T, HA:TFELT)

Now this last song, Zion.T isn’t listed on the title, but he sings the last verse SO:

3. Crush- Oasis (ft. Zico)

LOCO

While I don’t know much about Loco, but I really enjoyed the ENTIRETY his new album, Bleached, so I thought I would include him on the list.

And as a shameless plug for my boy Yonghwa’s new album, I will also be including the new song Loco featured on:

1. Jung Yonghwa (of CNBLUE)- That Girl (ft. Loco)

TIGER JK

IT’S TIGER JK, THE GODFATHER OF KOREAN RAP. WHAT KIND OF LIST WOULD THIS BE IF I DIDN’T INCLUDE HIM. I can’t even THINK of not including him. He’s such a good guy. Loves his wife, his kid, fights against child abuse, and  wanted to use hip hop as a form of discourse between the Korean-American community and African-American community after witnessing the  violence between Korean-Americans and African-Americans during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots as a teenager.

My favorite song by him is: Reset (ft. Jinsil of Mad Soul Child). (I know, a lot of people were expecting a different song, but this one really is my absolute favorite by him. I wasn’t expecting it and it just WHAMMED me.) Druken Tiger- Monster is a close second, though.

Now, for my bonus for him, I’m not including songs he’s featured in, but rather just MFBTY. I’m linking my favorite MFBTY song, Sweet Dream.  MFBTY (My Fans are Better Than Yours) is a group created between Yoon Mirae/ Tasha Reid, Tiger JK, and Bizzy.

TABLO

I’ve got to include this man who is adorably whipped for his daughter (the way I’m whipped for his works, lol). I love his works; to me, this man is a true poet. Every time I hear a work from him, I am astounded at the beauty of what he produces. While Tablo is the leader of the iconic Epik High, I’m including him on this list with his solo artist releases. 

My favorite Tablo song has got to be, without a doubt Bad ft. (Jinsil of Mad Soul Child). AAANNNNDDDD both of his solo albums, Fever’s End: Part 1 and Part 2. 

Bonus: Tablo covering Taeyang’s Eyes, Nose, Lips (in English) and making it even more of a work of art than it already was. 

MAD CLOWN

Favorite Mad Clown song? Hands down will always be Fire (ft. Jinsil of Mad Soul Child) <–have you noticed my trend of loving anything with her in it :D). The music video has Hani of EXID in it, bc last time I checked, Jinsil didn’t want to be in the MV. Other than that particular song, I thoroughly enjoyed Coffee Copy Girl. He says hilarious things on his tracks, too, (”roses really smells like poop”)  😂

Bonus songs that he’s featured collabed on: lol does this man even feature on anything? I only see him collabing with other artists 😂 so here is are 3 collabs of his to check out:

1. Mad Clown, Kim Nayoung- Once Again (DOTS soundtrack)

2. Mad Clown, San E- Sour Grapes

and one song that is his anyways, but has Hyorin featuring on lol 😂 😂:

3. Mad Clown- Without You (ft. Hyorin of SISTAR)

DPR LIVE

DPR WE GANG GANG. He made his debut by just releasing his first mini album in March: Coming to you Live. It was AH-MAZING. I really like his flow and what he seems to be doing as an artist. Actually, one of his song’s is listed earlier on this list because it featured Crush.

My favorite song from the entirety of the album would have to be Know Me (ft. Dean).

Bonus songs that he featured on:

1. Eung Freestyle with Sik-K, Punchnello, Owen Ovadoz & Flowsik (Yes, he was indeed a part of that iconic Youtube ad)

2. Loco- Movie Shoot (ft. DPR Live) (this is off of Loco’s new album that I spoke about earlier)

Thanks for reading until the end! I’ll be doing a female version soon enough–this post took me forever (a few weeks lol) to compile, so I can only assume the female version will take just as long. Send suggestions to my inbox if you want to.

[tea-study-write]

30 Questions

Thank you for the tag @lakeblue1 and @paperwhalien :) 

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to know better.

Nicknames: Tiff or Pearl

Gender: Female

Star Sign: Cancer

Height: 149cm 

Time: 11:50pm

Birthday: 26/06/00

Favourite Bands: ohh boy, you guys weren’t ready for this, SHINee, Fall Out Boy, COIN, DAY6, My Chemical Romance, BTS, DNCE, Vinyl Theatre, MAMAMOO, Misterwives, Chasing Grace, Young Rising Songs, DPR Live, The Lumineers, f(x), offonoff, The Rose, Oh Wonder, and so so many more, I probably forgot a bunch

Favourite Solo Artist: Dean, Jay Park, Sam Smith, Suran, HEIZE, Gallant, Genneo, Jonghyun, Taemin, Flume, also literally just got into Miguel like 30 minutes ago (I was looking at Coco’s soundtrack, I’m obsessed)

Song Stuck in my Head: A Smile is Beautiful (一笑傾城)

Last Movie I watched: Coco

Last Show I Watched: Love O2O

When did I create my Blog: uh... I think two years ago? possibly three? maybeeee four? idk

What do I post: Mostly pictures of my bullet journal, but I’ve started doing the 100 Days of Productivity Challenge so it has been whatever I am working on, on that day.

Last Thing I Googled: Probably good cafes to study in 

Do I have Other Blogs: Yep! I have a personal/kpop blog @bulletprooffuturehearts.

Do I get asks: Sometimes, but not that often. (I’m friendly though, so hmu for a chat!)

Why did I choose my URL: I drink a lot of tea in general while studying and enjoy writing, whether it is physically writing with a pen and paper, creative writing or essays. It’s really not that interesting. 

Following Blogs: 364

Followers: 117

Favourite Colours: pastels, blue, black and grey

Average hours of sleep: school days, six hours, maybe seven if I’m lucky. Weekends/holidays, honestly it ranges between 5-14 hours, my sleep pattern is pretty screwed. 

Lucky number: 3 and 8

What am I wearing: Black shirt and black skit

How many blankets I sleep with: Two! A soft fleecy one and a duvet.

Dream Job: Something that allows me to express my opinion and contribute to meaninful conversations.

Dream Trip: The whole world tbh

Favourite Food: RICE OMG, CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT IT

Nationality: Singaporean

Favourite song now: Remember Mme (Duo)

I look forward to getting to know you guys!

@einstetic @medicinablr @caffeinatedanxietywordvomit andddd I think everyone else has been tagged already so... 

[thomaholland]

i was tagged by @pxrker-peter!! aka the best person ever!! i love you, emily :)

rules: answer 30 questions and then tag 20 blogs you would like to know better

tagging whoever feels like doing this!!

1. nicknames: cel

2. gender: female

3. star sign: pisces

4. height: 5′1″

5. time: 6:55 PM

6. birthday: march 4th

7. favorite bands: gorillaz, panic at the disco, twenty one pilots, imagine dragons, the neighbourhood

8. favorite solo artists: shawn mendes, bebe rexha, halsey, dua lipa, hailee steinfeld, g-eazy, childish gambino, xxxtenacion, the weeknd, ariana grande, unlike pluto, blackbear, camila cabello

9. song stuck in my head: let me go - hailee steinfeld

10. last movie watched: spider-man: homecoming!!

11. last show watched: teen wolf

12. when did i create my blog: maybe five months ago?

13. what do i post: tom holland, spider-man, riverdale, skam, wonder woman, teen wolf (some of these are old news)

14. last thing googled: i was highkey stalking tom whoops

15. do you have other blogs: nope, but i’m planning on making one for writing hopefully!

16. do you get asks: lmao?? like rarely (please hmu! i don’t bite)

17. why did you choose your url: I LOVE ME SOME PETER PARKER

18. following: 45 (i need more people to follow)

19. followers: 7,210 (tysm? like wtf you guys? i’m blown away)

20. favorite colors: blue!! any pale colors!!

21. average hours of sleep: honestly i don’t even know at this point

22. lucky number: 8

23. instruments: none because i’m a talentless piece of shit

24. what am i wearing: a hoodie and some sweatpants :)

25. how many blankets do i sleep with: like five hundred??

26. dream job: probs to be an author? haha idk

27. dream trip: ENGLAND

28. favorite food: y’all don’t know about my blueberry obsession

29. nationality: asian-american

30. favorite song now: anything off the descendants 2 soundtrack asfjhsd

[peachy-jy]

ye olde tag game

I was tagged by @got7peaches and I want to know if you came up with the title

(I think this was supposed to be fun and light but it ended up going to a really deep and verbose place so I’m putting it under the cut)

not tagging anyone cuz no one should have to read this lololol fml

how tall are you? 5′6″ and I’m not a fan... short people are cuter what color and style is your hair? red and long and curly what color are your eyes? they’re blue around the edges and green around the pupil and I know that sounds like a description straight out of “my immortal” but no I’m not making this up do you wear glasses or contacts? both but I prefer glasses do you wear braces? never have never will what is your fashion style? I don’t think I really have a “style.” That would require more money than I am willing to spend on clothes. But I love everything Claire wears so... if I could afford Claire’s style and pull it off I would dress like her when were you born? October 22 (burn this date in your mind) how old are you? 24 do you have any siblings? 2 brothers, one older one younger what school/college do you go to? this seems like tmi so I’ll just say I’m in nursing school (as if everyone didn’t know that already I never shut up about it) what kind of student are you? the worst. I’m that asshole who puts in 10% effort and turns in everything late and somehow still does ok what are your favorite subjects? anatomy was super fun (the human body is weird and amazing) but I think my favorite class I’ve ever taken was formal logic (it’s the satisfaction of completing mathematical equations with none of the actual math) what are your favorite shows? 30 rock, parks and rec, the office, community, scrubs... basically good sitcoms with 5+ seasons. I’m also a slut for reality tv (dance moms anyone?) and competition shows (great british bake-off what whaaat) what are your favorite movies? the one I always pick when I have to pick just one is when harry met sally but I am a huge cinephile and I have dozens of favorites so if you’re looking for a movie rec hmu what are your favorite books? my book choices are a lil outdated cuz all I read is fanfic lately lololol but old OLD faves are hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, the giver, ready player one, and the hunger games series what are your favorite past times? my favorite past time is collecting past times, getting decently good at them, and then abandoning them. I’ve taught myself to play the ukulele, painting and drawing, niche board games, pottery, baking, the basics of a few languages, and a few video games here and there. The only hobbies that I’ve done consistently for several years are knitting, watching movies (specifically going to the movie theater because you can’t beat that atmosphere tbh), and writing (mostly fanfiction; I haven’t written anything original since high school). do you have any regrets? I wish I had never gone to the second university I attended... I basically wasted three years of my life in a hick town. I was miserable but I learned a lot about myself and also a lot about people and how to not be a shitty one so I guess it wasn’t a total waste. It sure felt like it though. what is your dream job? I wish I had the self-confidence to be a fiction writer full time. If I really worked hard at developing original concepts, I think I could be pretty good at it. Plus I would never have to leave my apartment and I could wear sweatpants 24/7, which is the real dream, let’s be real would you like to get married? where? I kind of flip flop on this one... sometimes I think I’d like it but then again I’m such a loner that I think I would suck at marriage sooo... my brother says I need to find someone who is as smart as me but total shit at something I’m good at, so I can take care of them and feel needed. I don’t know that marriage necessarily needs to be involved... Plus if I ever did get married I’d prob elop or only invite my immediate family sooooo do you want kids? how many? I don’t think I’d want to create life but I’d be 100% down for adopting... then again when my celeb crushes say they want kids I’m all I VOLUNTEER so who can say do you like shopping? If I magically come into extra income then yes. If I’m on a budget, shopping for something I need is like torture. The exception is always make-up/skincare. I buy myself new make-up when I’m sad. how many countries have you visited? 7, all of them European, but one of them was just for a day so I feel like it doesn’t really count. I really want to visit some Asian countries, though. what was your scariest dream? The scariest one that comes to mind was being locked in an office building with office workers and there was a serial killer-type guy in a jigsaw mask who kept turning the lights off and abducting people one by one and disfiguring their faces. No fuckin clue where that came from tbh. I’ve never even seen Saw. do you have any enemies? I’d like to think I don’t? I try really hard to treat everyone well regardless of how they treat me because I like being liked... but honestly there are a few people who hate my guts and won’t meet me halfway to reconcile sooooo yes, I guess I do. I don’t hold it against them, though. If they ever took a moment to see things from my point of view they would realize that I never meant them any harm and I’m just a flawed person, trying my best. But apologies don’t go very far with people who like to hold grudges and feel like the world is against them, so I can’t do anything about that. do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? I don’t have the energy for that. Right now, having a S/O sounds kind of terrible actually lmao they’re so much work

THIS GOT HELLA LONG I’M SORRY BLAME CLAIRE

Put your music on shuffle and list the first fifteen songs without skipping:

We Hate You Please Die - Crash and the Boys (Scott Pilgrim anyone? no? ok)

Amsterdam - Imagine Dragons (I downloaded the whole album bc I liked Radioactive but I’ve never actually listened to this song)

Green Onions - Booker T & The MG’s (idk don’t ask)

The Curse of Curves - Cute Is What We Aim For (a one hit wonder but I still know every word to this song)

All Alright - Fun.

Classic Rock Medley - The Cat’s Pajamas (a local acapella group from my high school days)

Bellas Final - the Pitch Perfect Soundtrack (ok this plus the last one is making it seem like I’m obsessed with acapella I’m really not)

East West - Herman’s Hermits (...I actually love this band don’t judge me)

Here It Goes Again - Ok Go (say what you will about the song but that video with the treadmills was iconic)

20 Dollar Nose Bleed - Fall Out Boy

Sims Holidaze - The Sims 2 Bon Voyage (I may or may not have the entire collected Sims soundtrack on my ipod...)

Lesson 4 Pronunciation - Rosetta Stone Italian Level 3 (Remember when I was fluent in Italian? yeah me neither)

Whistle (Acoustic) -Blackpink (I like the original better)

Come So Far (Got So Far To Go) - Hairspray soundtrack (ok but this whole soundtrack is a bop I forgot I used to love this)

Mowgli’s Road - Marina & the Diamonds

What have we learned? That hitting shuffle is not at all indicative of a person’s taste in music, but instead exposes their sordid musical past.