#i always just call it indie rock but indie rock is like. literally everything

[oflgtfol]

in my feels rn

[kurogxrix]

ATWOW characters in Highschool + music taste HEADCANONS

(neteyam, ao’nung, tsireya, lo’ak, kiri, tuk, rotxo)

[ Modern!au, Tuk is still in elementary school lmao ]

Neteyam

Mr.popular guy at school.

Goes to bother Kiri and embarrass her in front of her friend-group everytime at lunch.

Does after school activities nearly every single day.

My boy is so academically smart.

He doesn’t need tuition, tuition needs him.

Ao’nung defo copies on his homework everyday before class.

He’s the typa guy that prioritizes school before hoes so Neytiri is so shocked (and happy) when he finally brings a girl back home.

All of the teachers love him because he can calm the class down easily.

Not in an annoying teacher’s pet way, in a way that he’s literally homies with everyone so they stfu when he tells them to atp.

He definitely listens to afrobeats you can’t tell me otherwise.

He lives for and PRAISES rema.

His favorite songs are Woman by rema, Last Last by burna boy and No Sleeping by 1da Banton.

He also often listens to old school rap like MF DOOM.

Ao’nung

He’s a player fosho.

Like not the typa player to cheat on his partner but the single typa mf that fucks with many people at a time😭.

He’s definitely into sports like basketball. I think we can all agree w that.

Typa guy to wear a basket ball uni with gold plated chains.

He teases the ‘nerds’ in every single class that he has.

Is a menace like usual.

He smells so strongly of cologne.

Typa guy that would walk around with his varsity jacket if not for him being in his basketball outfit everytime.

Type of guy that has a ‘top 3 most attractive teachers’ list w his friends.

Ao’nung listens to rap theres no other.

Not like playboi carti kinda rap no, bro listens to Lil mosey, YNW melly, blueface and dababy (unironically)

Tsireya

She has GROUPS of girls talking behind her back.

They’re all jealous cuz our girl’s perfect fr.

Has one real friend group and sticks with them.

Nobody has the heart to tell her that girls shit talks her while she’s so nice to them.

Has a stash of pads in her locker incase anyone asks for them cuz she’s a real one‼️🤞🏽.

Walks back home with Lo’ak every single day.

She smells like plumeria 24/7.

She defo listens to pop like pinkpantheress and olivia rodrigo. SZA and doja cat girly.

Lo’ak

He throws wet toilet paper balls at the bathroom walls.

Gets called weekly at the principal’s office and wonders why.

Jake and Neytiri are fed UP.

Walks around with a pair of headphones in the morning because ain’t nobody talking to him while he’s half asleep.

One of his ex friends tried doing that and they ended up w a sore cheek fr. keyword: Ex friend.

Does his homework during lunch and always gets caught by his teachers.

He gives gym rat energy but not the annoying ones (are there even those?)

He’s some teacher’s favorite just like his brother, just cuz he’s the class clown.

Bet y’all the english teacher always laughs a little too suspiciously at his dumb jokes.

As the troublemaker kid, outcast and DEFINITELY his father’s least favorite, it only makes sense that he listens to rock.

Like heavy metal and NU metal.

His favorite band is Aerosmith I can see it.

And his favorite songs are walk this way by Aerosmith and born to raise hell by motörhead (ironic enough).

Defo listens to domination by pantera

He listens to Kendrick lamar and The Weeknd at times too.

Kiri

She’s a vanilla girly.

Like vanilla ice cream, vanilla deodorant, vanilla perfume, vanilla EVERYTHING.

She defo has crystals that she brings with her everywhere she goes.

Once she beat up Lo’ak for touching her crystals but my man was just trina manifest good grades fr.

She never finishes her lunch and Neytiri considers even still giving her food atp.

Cannot live without music.

Her earphones are always dangling out of her pocket because she’s always removing and putting them back in there.

No denying that she listens to Taylor swift.

Girl is a swiftie for LIFE. Other than that she defo listens to those indie bands like surf curse and TV girl.

Her favorite songs are disco by surf curse and Lavender haze by taylor swift.

Tuk

She has the newest generation iPad because papa jake’s income is paying good.

Well she isn’t allowed to bring it to school but she doesn’t anyways.

One day she got caught cuz she was playing some barbie makeover game in class.

Flexes her new glittery bag because she can.

She shares her food with her friends that have none because Neytiri taught her good.

She’s defo the typa kid that goes to school with freshly braided hair and comes back with them baby hairs sticking out and somehow one braid just completely undone.

She doesn’t get bullied or anything she just can’t stay in place at all.

she listens to those cringe TikTok songs i’m so sorry.

She’s still in that era 💔

Rotxo

I just know he’s on the verge of crying every morning trying to do his hair.

He’s so cute like wtf.

He struggles to get a girlfriend lmao so he’s always third wheeling everything.

He’s adorable though like, how???

No cuz like this mf STILL does those weird troom troom food hacks TO THIS DAY.

Like the thing where you put fondant in an empty glue stick roll just because.

Let his inner child have fun ok.

He’s a mixed music taste listener.But he mostly listens to rap.

Got influenced by Ao’nung.

-

I got way too lazy to finish or correct this.

[folklouire]

hello my dear! i hope you’re doing well! ☺️

i’ve got kind of an odd request that i think needs a little backstory. so, i think i mentioned once that i never really listened to 1d when they were big in the early 2010s (i was too busy listening to what one of my high school friends called “melodramatic hipster music” lmaooo). of course i knew of them peripherally from hearing them in stores and other places and also just bc they were so popular, but i never really got into them i guess

anyway, today i was listening to some like early 2010s nostalgia pop (as you do) and there were a lot of 1d songs on there and i was seized with the thought that maybe i should become more familiar with their discography and i was like “boy do i know the person to ask about this!!”

so now i am here bothering you in your inbox to ask where you think one might want to start if they were interested in getting into 1d. i know a handful of their really popular songs, but like what are the really really good ones? what are the deep cuts? what are your personal favorites?

also tho i know you’re probably really busy so literally no worries if you don’t have time for this!! i just wanted to ask you since i know you’re a fan, but truly no pressure at all!

um yeah anyway that’s it for now!! ily thank you sm ily bye!! 💕💕

HIIIIIIIIIIII my friend helloooooo 💞💞💞💞💞💞💞

first of all, soooooo sorry for taking so long to answer this, i keep forgetting lol i have to set reminders like ⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰ ANSWER YOUR ASKS DUMBASS!!!!⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰

SECOND, i'm always happy to see your name in my notes and inbox <3 and ESPECIALLY now that you've reached out to me about 1d aaaaaaaaghhhh 😭 i was so happy when i got this ask kdfrfhbdrh so excited !!

ok SO, if you're asking me, i'd say their entire discography as their ''good ones'' or my favourites hrbfhbd sorry i can't really decide because i genuinely think all their songs are good. i like their early very bubblegum pop, i like their more rock-ish approach, the ballads, the kinda indie sound, i like everything they've done.

SO, would you be okay if i made you a playlist with a few of their songs that are like my TOP top favs and let's say some underrated ones that the gp might not now about like some songs that are not very popular and then if you want you can explore the rest of their discography on your own and decide what you like and what you don't? what do you say? 💜

I LOVE YOU TOOOOOOOO, you're the sweetest!! 💝💝💝💝 i hope we're about to witness the birth of a directioner soon😂

[strigital]

just a small bunch of Alek because he is the babiest of girls 😔

think it's about time i explained who tf he is and why i'm always sad about him so here are a few fun facts about the boi!:

saw his parents get brutaly unalived by Arasaka aged 16 and had to delta the fuck outta there with a toddler sister in his arms

got stranded in the desert outside Night City with nothing to his name but dad's old jacket, enough eddies to buy like one burger and a hungry child to care for

came across some Nomads (the Bakkers) and for a year or two Selita Bakker took the babes under her wing (then she fucken died and he had to leave again)

was forced into a life of crime just to make sure his sis didn't starve

he'd disappear for days or weeks doing gig after gig while Jaxine stayed with Mama Welles, Padre, Dr. Vik or Mama Fabienne (a kind-hearted haitian proprietress of The Birdhouse, an orphanage set up in the ruins of a small theatre tucked away somewhere between Dogtown and GIM) more about her sometime later

because of that Jax basically raised herself and Alek forever hated himself for not being there for her when she needed him most

he called her Jacket all the time and only used her name when she done fucked up and needed an ass woopin' (she was a hooligan who'd get locked up on possession charges aged 14...)

the nickname came from the fact that after they became orphans Jax would only ever shut up and stop crying while swaddled into her dad's giant jacket; she'd even wobble around like a penguin wearing it like a giant ass cape. and so it stuck. Jacket (sometimes it was JJ when Alek was in a hurry)

back in the world of edgerunning he was known as Vulture or V for short. his selling pitch was "got a bone to pick with somebody? Vulture's your man!"

as a side job he also ran an indie rock group "The Vultures". music helped him cope with day-to-day traumatic shit he had to endure. it's through the showbiz that he met Kerry Eurodyne and developed a hopeless crush on the celeb. feelings were mutual AF but both gonks were too shy to say anything. Kerry would only find out about it some years later from his sis when she became a walking floppy disk for Johnny_Silverhand.exe

at some point he utterly peaked in the merc world. every dog at the Afterlife knew his face and everybody wanted to work with him. even Rogue at some point advertised him to her clients as "the" man to do the job

at the pinnacle of his career Alek chipped in some mean mantis blades, top of the line Kiroshis, a Militech-made Sandevistan and a gazillion more enhancements that made him a fucken beast to be reckoned with. he also trained relentlessly and folks even mistook him for an ex-military, even though everything he knew was self-taught. he never stopped improving his body and mind and because of this (or maybe inspite of this?) he started showing the first symptoms of cyberpsychosis sometime around 2070. despite that, he'd keep his illness under control up until his death in 2074

it was also around this time that he klepped a pristine Type-66 Avenger off some corpo rat. he took the beaut to the Nomads to have it juiced up and after some work the wheels came out black as midnight, equipped with CrystalDome tech, guns upon guns, meanest freaking engine and tyres that could cling to walls if need be. don't ask how many people died staring down that bumper approaching them head-on at supersonic speeds, cause the answer is too many. Jax always felt like he loved that damned car more than her sometimes... and whenever she asked to take the beastie for a spin he'd always reply "over my dead body". who knew fucker meant it literally?!

Alek lied to Jaxine her whole life in a desperate bid to protect her from literally the entire world. the story of how they became orphans, what he did as a job, where he went off to for days on end... girl grew up knowing nothing about real Alek. only years later when with the help of a mutual friend she discovers his secret pad in the Glen that she'd start to piece together who he really was

Alek was afraid of his illness taking away his memory, so he scrolled damn near everything. birthday parties, hangouts at the shooting range, hikes into the badlands... every more or less important moment with Jaxie got recorded onto a BD shard and tucked away like a precious little slice of life that he was losing alongside his self-destructing neural links. later, Jaxie would spend hours rolling them over and over again, reliving the life that Arasaka took from them

throughout his career Alek's sole purpose in life (besides keeping his lil' sis alive) was revenge on Arasaka. specifically, he wanted to end Saburo himself with his own hands. any gig that involved messing with 'Saka or allowed him to gather crucial info was an automatic green light for him

he knew his dad didn't die in the assault and suspected he was Soulkilled like many other enemies of the corp (old man did in fact manage a anti-corpo group of vigilantes for like a decade before getting ratted out by somebody). at some point while on a gig to steal some 'Saka intel he got a hold of his dad's engram's copy. not like the Relic which would delete your personality, but the old gen - one that you plug in and talk to like your average hologram. of course, Alek never told Jax that he had their dead father on a shard slotted into his head at all times... and old man Bryce didn't want to traumatize his junior kid even further, either

dad wholeheartedly supported his son's mission to topple Arasaka, which was probably a bad idea... because history tends to repeat itself and eventually 'Saka discovered Alek's true identity and connected numerous crimes against them back to him. Adam Smasher was on his way to smash Alek...

too late did Alek realize that he done fucked up. he got all the crucial info locked away in his pad, the keys from it he left in his wheels and send that mf off into the sunset with a trusted fella. he recorded a sordid confession for Jaxie with a shitton of i'm-sorry's and i-love-you's and sent her away by... lying, again. he told her some drug dealers where coming to collect their due and he wanted her out of danger while he dealt with them. but the metal man Smasher showed up and the epic fight ensued. Alek knew he had no chance but he wasn't gonna make it easy for the dickwipe that zeroed his fam. the least he could do is hurt the bitch. and so as Jaxie was speeding away on Alek's bike - explosion. both Alek and his digitized dad were gone for good. Jaxie was left to fend for herself, not knowing that 'Saka now knew that they didn't wipe all of the Bryces and were looking for the one that got away

eventually she'd learn the whole tragic ass truth. and despite Alek's last wish for Jaxine to leave 'Saka be and just live her life, she made it her life goal to avenge her family. somehow, someway. one Johnny Silverhand would later come in extremely handy in this quest of hers

even though his life was hard and short, he did try to live to the fullest. he put his heart and soul into his music, he tried his damned best to show Jaxine that he loved her, and he looked out for his friends. Rogue would describe him as "the good villain" - a guy who despite having bloodied hands that never dried, always tried to do well by others. there was a short time when he was considered the deadliest motherfucker in town the mention of whose name sent shivers down gangoons' spines. and then he, like many before him and after, died

so if ya wanna honor the legendary Vulture whose flight was cut short, come down to the Afterlife and ask Claire for a shot of The Vulture: Armagnac Massy on the rocks with a splash of Cirrus Cola and a mint garnish. expensive, you say? if you knew him, you'd know he was worth every ennie

[opinated-user]

Lily is so weird to me because she just insists on deep throatng ceos and corporations and throwing regular workers under the bus for poor decisions. Like it's the reporters fault that Disney is always claiming to have their first gay character, even though the company could easily make their own media posts correcting them. It's the designers who released the new pokemon game early despite that not ever being their call, but instead the higher ups in the company. She never brings up how the ceo of blizzard is one of the worse out there, or the real sexual predators that worked in the company, but instead wants to beat the lady who wrote her fictional wifu wrong with a rock. Its Suagers fault for SUs shitty realse schedule not the network. Like it's really weird to me that this woman who prides themselves on being super progressive apparently hates workers and either straight up defends or ignores the real people in power.

All I can think is that, remembering her posts about other breadtubers, and complaining that instead of blaming everything bad on racism they blamed things on class struggles, she somehow came to the conclusion that corporations really aren't that bad and people are just lying about how little say they have when working for them. It's also easy to see that her lack of ever having a job outside YouTube has severely impacted what she feels workers can get away with. Like she believes if they get told do something they don't agree with they can/should just say no, as if that's a thing they can do. So instead of it being the higher ups fault, it's the lower ranking people's fault for not standing up to them. It's really a gross mindset, kinda victim blaming mindset.

i have been informed in the past that apparently she worked on a fast food restaurant some time ago, but otherwise you're right on point, anon. there's only one thing i want to remark and is this: "Like it's the reporters fault that Disney is always claiming to have their first gay character, even though the company could easily make their own media posts correcting them." if someone out there believes that the reporters just made those articles without any input from the company or their marketing team then they don't understand what marketing is. companies hire those writers to write about their movies, products, etc. if you have ever been on youtube and see an ad break of the youtuber suddenly explaining all about a new service or product they want you to try out, it's basically the same thing. they could not write anything that Disney doesn't want them to say, it would literally be impossible without there being some big consequences for whoever it was responsible for the mistake. the publisher gets paid by the company, the company recieves more potential costumers, the website where the article is written gets clics. it's a perfect arrengement for everyone. the only outlayers are indie publications and random reviewers just talking about the media, but if the article was on any kind of official publication then it was most certainly agreed upon before hand. someone had to approve that, just like sponsors have to approve the ads youtubers do before the video is published. this is already a known fact when it comes to most movies of big companies or trendy products, but when it comes to disney it's absolutely absurd to suggest that they wouldn't do this. disney as a company has spend 5.5 million dollars on advertisement last year alone. they had the resources, the time and the people to make Strange World into a success and they didn't because they didn't want to. when the movie with a main queer character of color fails they get to say "well, at least we tried!" and move on to keep making cisheteronormative movies that they'll promote to ensure that those are wins for the company. meanwhile LO'll either completely ignore the movie ever existed or insist that the movie was bad by itself so of course nobody cared for it. she's a capitalist at heart so when she sees a big company like Disney of course her first instinct is to praise it first, because something right and smart they must be doing to be on the position they're in. workers, on the other hand, don't have that power so that must mean they're doing something wrong and it's actually their fault.

[allthingsfook]

Hello!!

I love how you do your ships, and I was wondering if I could get one as well! I’m also asking anonymously to hide my lane!

I’m a 5’4” girl with a petite build. I have long, wavy, light brown hair and brown eyes. I have a lot of Italian and Polish in me, and my family embraces those cultures! I have larger lips, and my smile is a feature I have a lot of confidence in.

My enneagram is literally tied between 2 (The Helper) and 7 (The Enthusiast). My love languages are Physical Touch and Quality Time, and my MBTI type is ENFJ. I’m also a Pisces! I’m always pretty optimistic, and I love making others laugh! I’m very empathetic, compassionate, and conscientious. I love making others feel loved. I tend to get in my head a lot- overthinking and stressing about things. To have someone who will talk things through with me and offer reassurance would be lovely.

I’m pretty adventurous, too, and I love having fun! I feel like I can make a good time almost out of anything! I love exploring abandoned buildings, museums, nature, shops, everything!! I also enjoy learning new skills. I just taught myself to knit, crochet, and play the bass guitar (which I adore doing). I love to cook (especially Italian!), bake, read, write, paint- I want to try whatever I can get my hands on. I love Old Hollywood and studying WW2, and from that I’ve developed a love of swing dancing.

I listen to a little bit of everything, including big band music, jazz, blues, classic rock, and indie rock. I also collect vinyls.

I know that’s a lot, but that pretty much sums me up completely!! Thank you so much in advance!! 💞

Hey Hey 🥰🥰 I love that you guys hide your lanes. It makes this so much more fun 😆

From what I read, I ship you with…

Josh 💕

Josh no doubt falls for a beautiful smile… and from the moment he meets you he’ll dream about your full lips! When you finally share your first kiss, it will be the most electrifying feeling 😊

Josh would be interested in your cultures. Stuff like that peaks his curiosity. Everything from traditional values to food to celebrations to customs. He’d beg you to make him hearty Italian dishes! The majority of Frakenmuth is German, but I’m sure Josh has some elaborate story of all the heritage in his family. He’d totally make you try beer out of a stein 😂🍺

Being the helper and enthusiast really jives well with Josh. In his present form, Josh talks a lot about being a troubadour and exploring the world. He values his freedom and ability to embrace the world. That really speaks to your enthusiast. The helper has a lot to do with love. While Josh is sort of scared of the idea of domestication, he has huge love. Love for the world and everything on it. If the right person came into his life, I feel he would be able to adjust to sharing his intimate life with someone. That might be you 🤍

No doubt physical touch is Josh’s #1 love language 😆

I really would like to see what personality type Josh is from his own accounts 🙂 I think he is quite in line with the ENFJ type. Straight from the source: “Protagonists feel called to serve a greater purpose in life.” Josh to a T!!!! You both certainly have the drive to create a positive impact on those around you. I encourage you to read the information on ENFJ with Josh in mind. It’ll either change or enhance the way you see him already 🤍🤍😊😊

Josh would be the perfect person to sit down with, talk through life, and seek out pure reassurance. Josh would always have just the right words for you. Combining that with his sweet touch, you’d feel so safe and accepted with him.

All seriousness aside, Josh is always up for a new adventure. His love for trying new things clearly would keep your relationship exciting! I would really like to see Josh exploring an abandoned or haunted building. Wonder what his views are on that…. Guess we will have to add that to the list of wonders 😂 He would marvel at your knack for picking new things up and excelling in them. He’d certainly try to craft with you. I can see him making you a keychain or something like that 😂 Kind of frivolous, but the sweet look on his face when he presents it to you would be worth clipping it on your keys.

I think the most adorable thing would be Josh trying to learn to dance with you!!!! You know how giggly he gets when he dances. He’s no Frankie Manning, but he would try to be just for you. A plus is you’d get to see him topple on his butt a few times 😆 Even if he isn’t the best dance partner, his favorite part would be listening to the music. He’d place a Jumpin’ Joz Band record on the player and bebop over to you, eager to spin and flail you around!

I hope you enjoy this!! Let me know what you think 🤍🤍💗💗

[pingwen]

Okay I have a lot of these and I kind of want to list them out bullet-point review style

CONICICAL MONOCLE by PRETTY BALANCED: This album is amazing, surreal, sometimes absurd, always ethereal. The opening song is one of the most beautiful musical compositions I've ever heard; the second song is a lovely excersise in almost seussian whimsy, and then the album just keeps going. Every single song feels distinct and yet they all form a coherent single vision; I can't imagine any of these songs in any other album, they just fit together. You have a song written from the perspective of an extremely pissed twelve-year-old. You have a two-part song about a person who drinks acid and then dies from drinking acid. You have a song about the visceral fear of death that makes you feel it, which comes right after an instrumental piece that sounds like the music itself is dying. This album is the first one I think of when I think "albums where I like every single track." I love every single track here.

COUNTERFEIT ARCADE by SHAYFER JAMES: Hey, do you like villain songs? I really, really like villain songs. This album is eleven discreet, grandiose, villainous compositions, all menacing and fun in equal part. This is one of the more fun albums to sing along with in the car, obviously. I feel like I'm devaluing it somewhat by calling it "just villain songs," but, y'know, I absolutely mean it as a compliment: This is an entire album in an honest-to-god musical genre you usually only hear one song at a time in.

DANIEL POWTER by DANIEL POWTER: Do you rember Daniel Powter? You know, the "you had a bad day, you're taking one down, you sing a sad song just to turn it around" guy? So, it turns out all of his songs are just kinda Like That. Daniel Powter by Daniel Powter has absolutely no variety, but if you like Bad Day, you're going to like this entire album. Every single song is just sort of a slightly different spin on Bad Day. It's fantastic.

TEMPORARY RESIDENT by IMAGINARY CITIES: Marti Sarbit's vocal performance absolutely makes this album. She brings such a wistful, almost antiquated blues-rock sincerity to every last track. Temporary Resident is the soundtrack to the pretentious coming-of-age film that exists only in your mind. Temporary Resident is the music that the universe plays whenever someone boards a bus without knowing where it's going. Temporary Resident sounds the way staring out a car window feels. This album gets the "I paid for the mp3s to this album with real money, not even seeking out a physical copy, merely because I wanted to thank the people who made it" award in the field of excellence.

SUPERORGANISM by SUPERORGANISM: Quick qualifier: when I first got this album, the song "Nai's March" came up on shuffle way more often than literally any of my other songs, and now I like it less than the rest of the album. That's not the song's fault, though, that's just a fluke. Superorganism is such a delightfully unique indie-pop showcase. It's so fun and easy to listen to, while not being afraid to sound weird, throwing in sound effects and aimless musical tangents that make everything so much more interesting. I can't imagine you'd ever get bored of any of these songs - not even "Nai's March."

A BNNY NGHTMR II by BNNY RBBT: Everybody's favorite seven-foot-tall musical rabbit is at the top of his (agumented reality) game in his first(?) Halloween album. Halloween music slaps, always, and this album is a must-have on anyone's Halloween playlist. Listen to this every October, or listen to it now, and let it become October in your ears. On most of the albums on this list, I can't pick favorites, but here, Halloween Quiet and Guillotine are clear standouts.

[life-s-luvly]

about me!!

☆ just some intro stuffs

~i’m 15, non-binary (afab), and i use any pronouns

~unlabeled in my sexuality but i’m thinking pan or bi?

~right now, my style is pretty grunge, but i want to lean more like yk rockstars gf look this summer ykykyk

☆ things i love

~fnaf!! i grew up watching markiplier, jacksepticeye, and matpat play and do theories and stuff about it. i’m not as i guess “involved” for lack of a better term, than i used to be, but i still always watch any new theories or videos from creators i like about it :)

~music! i cant even explain it well enough in words how i love it. i love punk, rock, punk-rock, indie, shoegaze, pop, metal, soul, alt, rap, literally anything but country

☆ now some of my personality!! (you don’t have to read all of this, it’s kinda just rants of things i love!!)

~i love experiencing life. i want to be everything i cant. i wish to be everything. i maladaptive daydream, and while yes it may be harmful to my grades, my attention, my relationships, i honestly don’t care. i love my little worlds i’ve made in my head. “i hate how limiting this human life is. because i wish i could be a woman, a man, a mother and a father, to not have kids at all, i want to try every single food, to read every single book, to visit every place it is humanly possible to visit, to learn every single language, to gain all the knowledge of this world and to be completely clueless, i want to be a writer, a painter, a scientist, a musician, a lawyer. i want to meet everyone and make friends i'll can't even count to be a lover and to love, to be both the artist and the muse, oh god I wish I had a thousand lives this one is just not enough.”

~i’m a hopeless romantic. i want to experience love and passion. i want to care for someone and be cared back, love someone and have that love reciprocated. i maladaptive daydream, like i said, and my universes key component are about love. different ways i fall in love, meet people, live life.

~i love people. i love how we all have our own little ways of expressing ourselves with our styles or music or hair, it’s all just so cute. i love watching people experience life. looking around, you can see just anything, and you have no idea of their past, present, or future. all you know is how you perceive them in that moment. and that is so special to me. i love people watching and observing every little thing about nature, that be people, animals, plants, you name it. i love that you can be reading all of this, know this much about me, while not knowing what i look like, who i have been, who i ever will be. while people i call my own friends don’t even know this about me.

this parts gonna be short, but just so you know, i struggle with paranoia, depression, social anxiety (diagnosed/told by therapists or doctors)

i’m not sure of any other mental illnesses

i also have a history of eating disorders, self harm, and suicidal tendencies

this blog i’ll either repost things i like, random thoughts, or i might post some vents, so for the venting part i just wanted to let you know of my past because that is what it may involve. any vent i post i’ll put a tw, so yk in case any of that triggers you!!

[floralovebot]

do you have any headcanons for Helia and Musa? I rarely see headcanons about their friendship mind you share some about these two?

ooo interesting!! my two little art babies im love them

musa absolutely drags helia to her ear shatteringly loud rock concerts and he hates it so much. riven helps her drag him too so he can't escape.

on the flip side, she also takes him to all the indie ballad/folk pop artists she loves so it evens out adljhgal

sometimes when musa can't reach riven, she'll just call helia. she usually calls with the intention of asking if riven is okay, but they always get side tracked and somehow start talking about how bad some of the other specialists smell

speaking of gossip, these two are awful. they're so nice most of the time no one really expects it but LORD. they have shit on everyone. they talk about everyone. no one is spared!!!

rivelia being besties means helia gets a vip ticket to all rivusa drama. it's exhausting and he would really like to get off the ride. but also sometimes it's funny like what do you mean she had a crush on a middle aged white guy. when everything is all said and done with them and a respectful amount of time has passed, helia does send shit like "so jason huh 👀". musa hates it so much

one time helia made the album art for one of her releases. it was super obvious and he didn't get paid

musa is obnoxiously on helia's side all the time! unless it involves one of the winx of course they're her ride or dies. but if he's arguing with one of the specialists or someone else, it literally doesn't matter who's in the right, she will side with him and make it known loudly.

they're kind of like siblings honestly helia will pull her hair while he's walking by and whenever she's at their place, she will open his door, stand there silently looking at him, and then leave and not close it again. absolute menaces to each other

but they're also extremely supportive of each other!! like? helia wants to ditch everyone and go live on an island alone for the rest of his life? musa: slay king. musa dumps riven for the fifth time this week and also gets into two physical fights with strangers? helia: you go bestie (but also please call riven he's mad again bestie)

on a serious note, i think they would bond a lot over family members not respecting their dreams and decisions. it implied that saladin was very encouraging of helia pursuing art, but it's vaguely implied that not everyone who's close to him was. i think it'd be really nice if they were able to talk through that and comfort/encourage each other!

on a not serious note, i think they both love it when the other goes apeshit. standing in the crowd going "WOOOOOOO PUNCH HIM AGAIN"

them...

[d-criss-news]

Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

“MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

[luminousbravery]

Nice! I'm so glad there are still people here(in this fandom)! Okay, here it is:

I am a 5'6" biological female, I use she/her/they pronouns(god that sounds cringey), I am bisexual(I'm pretty sure, at least), have medium length dark brown hair, and turquoise/greenish eyes(i don't really know what color they are), and I wear black glasses with clear rims. I have what most would describe as the 'hourglass/pear' body shape with larger hips and B cup breasts. I tend to wear baggy, comfort-first sort of clothes with the occasional dress and one piece.

My zodiac signs(If you care) are Virgo(sun), Libra(moon), and Virgo(ascendant). I also have the INTP personality type.

Facts about me:

I have been told than I have a high maturity level for someone my age(but I laugh at dumb jokes so idk if I believe them)

I enjoy cracking jokes about anyone and anything, NO ONE IS SHIELDED FROM MY COMEDIC WRATH

I am kind, polite, relaxed, have a dark sense of humor and generally low self-esteem

I try to be open-minded, and am always looking to improve my talents and relationships with those I care about

Critical and suspicious of literally EVERYTHING (especially myself)

I can be insensitive, petty, and sometimes even knowingly dismissive of my faults, and try to blame others instead

I lie a lot more than I'd like to admit, but try to make up for it and improve

I come from an primarily Christian family, my favorite season is winter, and I would like to create other forms of art other than writing at some point

I used to have what could be considered a phobia of insects/bugs, but it has become a lot mild over the years

I mostly enjoy physical affection more so than verbal, but if worded in certain ways that can touch my heart, I will prefer the latter, and you will have acquired a loyal ally (I respect the power of words, I am a writer after all)

I am what is described as a HSP (hyper sensitive person, look it up if you're curious)

I have a condition called Exotropia (aka drifting eye) in my left eye that has been corrected through 3 surgeries (but I still have to wear glasses in order to maintain it).

A firm believer that nothing is truly impossible, and that people hate most in others what they hate in themselves

Confused by everything 24/7… EVERYTHING

Likely on the autism spectrum

Low self-esteem

Definitely a perfectionist

I try by best not to start conflict(that is my sister's job), and I hate when people put me in situations where I have to make a personal choices... but that also means I mask my own emotions a lot

Likes: Being helpful, alternative, rock, and indie music, order and peacefulness, making people laugh, Sci-Fi media, writing/creating, tarot cards, D&D, anything to do with the diversity of personalities, psychology, cooking and baking

Dislikes: Being a burden, country music, drama and chaos, low effort creative endeavors, hypocrites(ironically), closed minded people, bad grammar, things not going my way, extremely religious people, weird internet trends and phrases (ex: pogchamp, dummy thicc, boomer, etc.), most of tumblr, Twitter

And that should be most of the important stuff (just so I don't get carried away)! I am very interested to see who you match me with!

okay i just woke up so this one is going to be a liiiiittle bit short righto

i pair you wiiiiith jade harley! idk i feel like you two would bond well and balance each other out somehow. like you two would have similar interests and your personalities aren't exactly the same, but you two would work in a weird kind of harmony. so yea!

[sagessoftwings]

Hi my name is rex, i’m queer and use they/them pronouns

i have like a caramel colored skin-tone and im 5’3 (short king). Rn i have a purple-pink short mullet and i have pretty curly hair(the ethnic popped off hehe), im pretty chubby but i have an hourglass shape, im pretty busty(im a fuckin k-cup bro😭) and thicc thighs(thicc thighs save lives, sorry i’ll stop). I dress pretty alternative but i cant just choose one subculture tho, i wear a lot of heavy eye makeup. I could say i dress kinda “showy” but thats kinda what only fits me, but also who gives a fuck.

Im a libra sun, scropio moon, and gemini rising. This means that im a pretty social person and always wanna hang out with friends and just have fun, but moon in scropio makes my emotions rlly haywire and kinda boosts any sorta negative emotion. I really like making people laugh, it makes me feel helpful, but im also good at being to mother figure for people.

I guess i could say my type is mamas boys lol, there always super sweet and respectful, orr the golden retriever type. The troupe i want in a partner is big titty goth person and the golden retriever. But its hard when your head is always like 😫WOMEN😫 and then also have the 4 types of men you got.

My hobbies include painting, drawing, and a bit of singing (im pretty insecure about it because i have a kinda deep voice). I just love creative stuff, plus it is a good outlit for me and my emotions. I also love sleeping (because i stay up mad late😭✌🏽), reading comics, Marvel and D.C superheroes, and super villains, cartoons, and anime/manga.

My favorite music genre’s are rock, alternative, emo, rap, and a little bit if indie music.

this is a power point lmao

YOU SOUND LIKE SUCH A GENUINELY AWESOME PERSON AHHH, much love honey <33 (also If I got your sexual preference wrong PLEASE let me know so I can redo it)

For MHA I ship you with: Mirio Togata!!

Our golden retriever himself

He ADORES YOU

He genuinely thinks your so neat because how freely you express yourself, like man is dumb founded marry him now pls

This man will raid your closet though and have fashion shows for you and in between you’re like “Wait a fkn sec, are those mine?”

He gets really excited and feels so loved when you ask him to help dye your hair and is obsessed with your curls

Mirio has the wash day routine down and will help him if you’ll let him

Mirio makes sure you know he adores you and loves you no matter your weight, he personally likes you just the way you are

Mans will ask you on the daily if he can lay on your thighs, maybe if he’s sweet in between them??

DO HIS MAKEUP PLS, he will stare at you till you look his direction and would sigh “I would hate if someone did my makeup totally awesome like yours…” and he’d just STARE INTO YOUR SOUL until you offer

He’s pretty moderately protective of you, especially if someone is rude regarding how you dress or anything about you really, mans will pop off

Mirio rlly likes it when you sing, he’ll be laying on top of you and just hum along, he is so in love

Mirio can't draw or paint, like you would be on a cute balcony painting date and he would be covered in paint as he just smears colors on the canvas with his hands and then look up rlly proudly and be like “I call this one, enigmaaaa”

He tries for you though

Mans loves you boobas, like he’d walk up behind you while your cleaning and be like “Those look mighty heavy, mind if I help” but means it really in a loving way because he knows they hurt your back

Mirio has such a sweet singing voice and likes to sing to you when you nap, but when you actually fall asleep he starts singing fucking Megan Thee Stallion

He’d also sing the Encanto songs I JUST KNOW IT mans loves that movie sm( like literally he watched it with you and this mans runs around yelling the lyrics)

(I literally watched the movie 15 times and can’t get it out of my mind)

For haikyuu I ship you with: Hinata Shoyo!!

LOVES YOUR HAIR

He’s obsessed with everything about you

He really likes the fact that you two are the same height because he’s really sensitive about it

Loves to hold onto you, Hinata loves everything about you and never fails to tell you

If you let him he’ll probably sit in your lap too jahsjha

He treats you so well man oh man I’m jealous

HINATA LOVES TO HEAR YOU SING LIKE BESTIE PLS NEVER SHUT UP

Pls give this man fashion advice he has no taste art all

He likes to make poorly colored pictures for you and will go berserk if you put it on your fridge

I can't get the scene of hinata rap battling Aone in the stage play, man can spit some lines though no doubt

Hinata can and will steal your clothes, he thinks their cool but mans will pair them with like gym shorts and get laughed at

Please love on him the needs it

[ssickabit]

[10.18 pm]

“I think I wanna kiss you,” Chan said as he leaned his forehead to her, hand still on her waist, swaying it as the music played in the venue, “right here, in front of everybody, right now.”

“you gotta perform soon.”

Chan pursed his lips that were inches just from her. it’s really dangerous if their lips meet, so he just hold everything in. the lights were down low but this lounge is not new to people in the city. maybe the alcohol already taking him over, but she wasn’t sure.

as a bassist of an indie band, it wasn’t a new thing for her to perform from lounge to another lounge, with those classical harp and violin player that she met years ago.

this is a new year party and Chan, surprisingly, gotta perform as a DJ. here, with her.

his bandmates, of course went to this place too, but they’re nowhere to be seen—or Bangchan just really cool at sneaking like this.

none of his bandmates know about his relationship with her, it’s just a casual meet up at the weekend when they’re not busy. it doesn’t really matter though, they’re nothing more than a friends with benefit.

“it’s your time,” she whispered.

“i know,” he answered in a low tone. she pushed him a bit so he can go.

a friend approached her by tapping her shoulder, making her shrug. “who’s that guy?” a question asked as her friend pointed the DJ guy that seems known by everybody.

“just a friend,” she answered.

“i heard he is cool.”

she casually nodded. “yeah. maybe.”

she kew his bandmates still there as some crowd loudly cheering from him. those musics that she doesn’t really have in her playlist was played, making people jump. she just stood there with her cup of coke—sometimes she looked over him and they made eye contact.

he is mesmerising.

so close but so far away.

he finished not long after, but he decided not to meet her again, nor his bandmates. it doesn’t matter for her, as she waited in a room, playing her bass. then a message popped up in her phone, making her heart skipped a beat.

Chris

Meet me at the parking lot.

Now.

she rolled her eyes as she got up and unplugged the cable from her bass. she pack it up then went out to the parking lot.

“let me,” he was standing by a black car, then proceed to take her bass away.

before she said a word, he kissed her. she never knew she would miss his touch this bad. one of his hand cupped her cheek as their gaze met. “backseat?”

“you really can’t wait to fuck me?”

he laughed. “you know? we can’t go out looking for a motel.”

he opened the door then crawled in, welcomed by her lips and tounge. she was straddling his lap, as she felt something on there was asking for a release. “you made me hard since you’re performing earlier,” he said between kisses, “you’re hot, you know?”

“are you drunk?”

“i drive,” he answered.

so she knew that he was sober. the heated make out continued as his hand slipped inside her shirt, grabbing her breast. her lips were trailing kisses lower his lips, gritted her teeth onto the soft skin. his breathing became heavy now, it’s like he got wrapped around her fingers. “as i like your mouth wrapped around my cock that much, i think we don’t really need to that right now,” he said as she looked up.

they helped each other as they took off their pants.

“wait.”

“what?”

“what’s your favourite position?”

she furrowed her eyebrows. “uh, the basic one? because i like intimacy, you?

he felt something weird creeped through his body. he lifted both of his eyebrows then said, “oh. nice. i’m up to anything, though.”

“so...”

“how about we do rock paper scissors, then the winner can choose the position?” Chan lifted both of his eyebrows, showing her his playful smile. she laighed hard then leaned her forehead on his shoulder. he can feel the vibrations from her—making him somewhat melting into her. “what the fuck is that?” she asked, still laughing.

“come on, make this more fun,” he pleaded.

“ok, ok,” she lifter her head, then prepared herself to beat him up. paper meets paper. rock meets rock. then scissors met paper.

“Ha!” he shouted, “i win.”

she shook her head while smiling, waiting for his choice. “ok, i honestly don’t know—i’m up for everything,” he said while laughing.

“you’re unbelieveable Chris,” she hit his chest as they burried their head in each others neck, laughing. “ok-ok, you ride me. deal?”

“your cock literally begged to be inside my pussy since while ago.”

he blushed. “shut up!”

the playful situation turned into an intense one, as she start to jerk his member with her hand then sliding it into her dripping core. “so fucking wet,” he whispered, “have you been thinking about me lately princess?”

she nodded. “you look hotter on stage,” she said. he lifter her chin, as his cock finally making her full. their gaze met, so did their lip. she could feel the butterflies in her stomach as she melted into his touch. honestly, this little thing that he do when they’re having sex is so beautiful. how he kissed her like he doesn’t wanna let go of her taste, how he always make sure she’s in pleasure too—perfect.

the way he shared his insecurities with her, how he said she’s always making him feel good—she wished he was more than just a fuck buddies.

“why don’t you just fuck me in the bathroom?” she asled as she slowly grinned on his lap.

“i think it’s not really comfortable, though?”

she knows he doesn’t like a quickie like that. “have you ever take me from behind though?”

he shook his head. “no. i haven’t.”

she knows he doesn’t really like to hurt her with the hair pulling and stuff.

she began to rock her hips faster. he mouth open agape to the pleasure as his tip brushed the spot inside her. she hold onto his shoulder tightly, trying to make her pace steady. he sometimes slapped her butt, making her moan right into his ear.

low groan that escaped his lip is like music in her ear, so she always make sure she’s doing her pace right. both of them entered this braindead period where they just fucked up. “so good,” he kissed her shoulder, “so so good for me.”

Chan bit his lip as he felt something built up in his stomach. “oh fuck,” he mewled, “so close.”

she furrowed her eyebrows, focusing on his pleasure only as her high approached. she nearly screamed in the crook of his neck as she hit her peak—can’t contain herself from the pleasure. he panted as he felt his cock throbbing inside her tight walls. “please cum inside me,” she whined, the only thing that he could her.

even she look so tough on the stage while playing her bass, Chan knows right her weakness and sweet spot also how to make her cry on her knees. “why should i?” he teased.

“please, please,” her kiss on his neck was messy, “want you to fill me up, please—“

Chan can’t wait any longer. he let out the low growl as he shot his seed into her. it dripped out from her pussy as he took a look on it. “fuck,” he whispered. they stayed like that as they calmed their breath. she brushed the hair that was messy and damp in front of his forehead. he held her closer into him.

“happy new year,” he said.

“what time is it?”

“i don’t know,” he said, then grabbed his jeans. he let out his phone then looked up into the time. “twelve past twelve? definitely happy new year.”

she just hummed into his neck. “wanna take some drink tomorrow?” he asked.

“i have some practice tomorrow but i guess yeah.”

he smiled to himself and he swallowed his gut. “cool.”

“your friends called you, right?” she asked. “you missed alot from them, but you make your phone silent.”

he shook his head, then deciding to kiss her lips. “don’t worry about it.”

[harryuma]

hevie and audrevie

HEVIE

who’s the cuddler? : I would like to think they’re both very cuddly because they literally can’t keep their hands off each other, however I think Harry takes the crown. It’s become practically normal that Harry somehow has to sit on Evie’s lap at any given moment.

who makes the bed? : Evie. She loves having everything organized and tidy (and she’s a total clean freak too. She’s probably used her knowledge of chemistry to like, make her own scented hand sanitizer.) While Harry isn’t so good at keeping things clean, he does take the opportunity to make the bed whenever Evie is out running errands, so she can come home to a made bed every time.

who wakes up first? This answer is a bit similar to the last question, but I’d also say Evie because I think she’d be punctual (especially when there’s an event she has to be at.) Harry sleeps in later, but wouldn’t mind waking up before Evie to start making breakfast.

who has the weird taste in music?: Harry. Definitely. He has a very wide range of music he likes to listen to, like he’ll go from indie rock to country to dance pop to Broadway in 5 minutes. Evie once found him blasting sea shanties in the middle of the night.

who is more protective? Both, but their ways of protecting each other are vastly different. Evie would be stern and stand her ground but with her same elegance and grace. Harry will literally threaten to kill someone if they even looked at Evie the wrong way.

who sings in the shower? Both. Together. They harmonize too.

who cries the most during movies? Both. Evie cried at the sad stuff and happy endings in movies, whereas Harry more likely cries at the musical score in the background of the movie.

who spends the most time shopping? BOTHHH. They both are really really into fashion and trends, so they often come home with almost half their weight in shopping bags.

Who kisses more roughly? I would say both, but then again I think Harry would. Evie would sometimes surprise him when she’d kiss him roughly.

who is more dominant? Harry calls Evie daddy and no I won’t elaborate.

my rating of this ship: 1000 / 10 i love them sm

AUDREVIE

who’s the cuddler? Both but Audrey a bit more. Sometimes Evie lets her doze off on her shoulder or her stomach. Evie thinks Audrey is warm and smells like cotton candy.

who makes the bed? Evie. Audrey tries but a lot of the time she’s too tired to bring herself to do it.

who wakes up first? Evie, and she’s made herself Audrey’s personal alarm clock by peppering kisses all over her face.

who has the weird taste in music? Neither. They both have very similar tastes in music (which is mainly pop music) and they send each other music recs all the time.

who is more protective? Audrey. Lonnie offered her to come train with her in the boxing ring of her gym when she saw her literally take down a man twice her size who was trying to approach Evie.

who sings in the shower? Both. However Evie was downright impressed when she heard Audrey perfectly belt out an Ariana Grande song in the shower once.

who cries during movies? Both. They always have tissues on standby.

who spends the most time out shopping? BOTH. They both absolutely LIVE for retail therapy after facing a minor inconvenience.

who kisses more roughly? Audrey loves to spontaneously pull her in and kiss her with force and it always leaves Evie blushing and smiling at the ground.

who is more dominant?: Both. Let’s just say their favorite nickname to call each other is “princess.” (I will not elaborate on this either.)

my rating of this ship: 1000 / 10 theyre everything to me 🥺

send me ship asks!

[blodreina-noumou]

The 100: One Final Rewatch

This is it. My send-off to The 100. One full, complete rewatch. Season one to season seven. Episode 1 to episode 100. Every cringeworthy, beautiful, brutal, heartwarming moment. Every chopped plot thread, every inspiring character arc, every sailing and sunken ship. Every gut-wrenching death and every narrow escape. The best, the worst, the utterly mediocre.

All of it, in order, one last time.

Unfortunately, we’re not starting off on a strong foot.

Episode 1x01: “Pilot”

(Fun fact! I totally watched the pilot last night and wrote up almost this entire post, and then I forgot to save it in my drafts. In that post I was like “I’m never watching the pilot again after this, lol!” but now I have to so I can remember my notes. I’m mad.)

Highlights

Best quotes:

“Looks like your dad floated me after all.”

“No one has a brother!”

“Let’s give them something else to remember you by. ... Like being the first person on the ground in 100 years.”

Best moments:

1 - Getting to see our first glimpses of most of the major players of The Hundred. Octavia cheering on Finn’s rebelliousness, when he starts floating around the chamber. Monty and Jasper sitting together on the dropship. Murphy standing behind Octavia as she steps out onto the ground. Bellamy and Clarke sure are...there.

2 - Octavia stepping off the dropship and screaming, “We’re back, bitches!” Fucking “Radioactive” playing as the kids run screaming out of the dropship. Everyone experiencing sunlight and fresh air for the first time in the entire lives. It’s cheesy, exciting, and on-the-nose. I love it.

3 - The final moment almost makes up for the rest of the episode. Watching under the impression that these kids are alone on the planet, and basically just running wild without supervision because they feel relatively safe, and for some of them, free for the first time in their lives - the whole thing is charming, but feels a little too juvenile. Then, right in the midst of a fun, summer camp moment, - swinging across a river on a vine, complete with indie pop rock soundtrack - Jasper gets speared right in the fucking chest!! The music cuts, the remaining kids scream and run, and Clarke gasps out that succinct and game-changing line: “We’re not alone.”

Lowlights

Worst quotes:

“Hey spacewalker! Rescue me next.”

“Note to self: next time, save the girl.”

“We have to warn them.” .. “That’s what my father said.”

Worst moments:

There is SO much that I hate about the pilot. So much. It’s hard for me to pin down the worst moments, because I think it’s most of the episode. Here’s my Top 3, to keep it short.

1. Bellamy. Just all of Bellamy in this episode. It took me a long time to warm up to Bellamy, and this season really reminds me why. He’s pulling all of this alpha male posturing that makes me want to mock him relentlessly. He causes chaos and postpones very vital and obvious measures for their survival just to cover his own ass. He might’ve gone to the ground to protect Octavia, but once he’s there, most of his decisions are about making sure he never has to face the consequences of that choice. He does grow a lot from here, but it’s hard not to hate him in the first episode. His hair doesn’t help. Thank god they let that one go quick.

2. Clarke and Finn are supposed to be these super smart, master survivalists, but they drink river water without boiling it or purifying it in any way. Hello giardia! Just one example of bad world-building and inconsistent realism in this universe.

3. Murphy being like, “Leave Jasper alone, he’s with us.” Only because in like, two episodes, he’s going to be ready to kill Jasper. Murphy is a dick in the first season, lmao. It works well, though, because his heel turn is one of the best I’ve ever seen on television. And it’s fun to watch Richard Harmon play around with being a total asshole.

Small Things

Things I Never Noticed Until Now:

1. Finn’s foolishness, and the boys who followed suit, is what breaks the dropship communication systems. I don’t know how I missed that in my half dozen viewings, but here we are.

2. Clarke goes from a very practical braid to a much less practical half-ponytail in the space of five minutes and no one comments on it.

3. Finn is actually the very first person to call Clarke “princess.” I’d always thought it was Octavia. Fun fact - so many people call Clarke “princess” in this episode/season, I spent my very first viewing back in 2015 convinced she was literally descended from royalty.

MVP of the Episode:

Wells Jaha. He tries really hard to counter Bellamy’s ego trip. In the beginning, he’s one of the only people, besides Clarke, who is focused on trying to keep everyone alive. They had to kill him in episode 1x04 because he would’ve solved everything if he stuck around. There’d be no drama, just Wells running shit.

Overall Impression 

The premise of this episode had so much potential. But a clunky script with too much exposition and some very awkward performances makes it fall very short. Maybe it actually stands as a chilling portent of a pattern we’d come to know too well in this series - incredible potential, very little satisfying follow-through.

Episode Rating: 1/10. 

This is one of the worst episodes in the entire series. A feat that wouldn’t be achieved again until at least s6. 

The good news is, we’ve got nowhere to go but up!

[lovejustforaday]

Sonic Youth Albums Ranked (Part 1)

There are few indie/alternative bands that I’d argue are as challenging and engaging, or as formative as Sonic Youth.

From their early days as a radical no wave project, to their mid-career as a hard-hitting noise rock band, to their later years as a mellow indie band with prickly guitar tones, Sonic Youth has reinvented the concept of both the guitar and rock music in general again and again. They’ve probably made at least fifty or so never-before-heard noises with their instruments. Combining these sounds with lyrics that regularly explore disillusionment, nihilism, social transgression, pop culture, feminism, abstract thought, underground scenes, and outsider art — it’s safe to say that Sonic Youth have always gone against the grain.

The members of Sonic Youth are obviously all musicians, but they have also been iconoclasts, satirists, and poets throughout their careers, creating music that demolishes both the conventions of rock as well as the social pretensions of the conservative American lifestyle.

Each member of the main lineup contributes something fundamental to the band:

-Guitarist/vocalist/de-facto leader Thurston Moore, the no-fucks-given anti-rock star icon and visionary (albeit he’s kind of a smug twerp these days)

-Bassist/guitarist/vocalist Kim Gordon, the reserved but sharp-witted feminist and multi-disciplinary artist

-Guitarist/sometimes vocalist Lee Ranaldo, the revolutionary master of bizarre guitar tunings

-Drummer Steve Shelley, whose soft and shy demeanor masks a deliverer of precise, high-speed rhythmic anarchy

I could go on and gush about this band forever, but I’ve decided to settle for writing a big nerdy list all about how I feel each Sonic Youth album holds up when ranked. With 15 proper records in total, there is a lot to digest. Likewise, I highly encourage you if you haven’t already to go listen to some of these LPs for yourself and formulate your own opinions about one of the most fascinating bands to have ever existed. This list is really just my two cents.

Note: we will be focusing on the 15 full-length studio albums recorded under the name “Sonic Youth”. This list does not include the s/t debut EP, nor does it include the “Whitey Album” or the SYR series since those are best understood as separate side projects. This list is going to be long enough as it is anyway.

15. Rather Ripped (2006)

Main Genres: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock

A decent sampling of: Noise Rock

From any other band, this is a perfectly decent album with a few nice, gratifying guitar tones here and there. But as a Sonic Youth album, Rather Ripped sounds like the band is on auto-pilot. This is the band’s only album that to my ears sounds like it could’ve been written by any number of other alternative rock bands at the time. It just lacks a certain essential edge that their music usually has.

It really doesn’t help the case for this record that Thurston Moore began having an affair at this point in the career, and it is disgustingly present in the lyrics in hindsight, with the offensively titled “Sleeping Around” and possibly even “Incinerate” both probably taking inspiration from his dirty little secret.

I usually separate art from the artist to a certain degree, but in this case it really does kill part of the experience, because I can’t help but feel that Thurston is having a stupid little giggle to himself by hiding his affair in plain sight and it’s really just kind of pathetic. Kim Gordon is my favourite member of the band, and to me she’s the epitome of an extremely cool person, which only makes the whole thing worse. Seriously, quit bragging old man.

Speaking of “Incinerate”, I can confidently say that I think this is the band’s most overrated song. Certainly not their worst, but I really can’t fathom how so many people consistently put this up there with “Schizophrenia” or “The Diamond Sea” as one of Sonic Youth’s top five songs when it’s honestly just so...by the numbers.

That being said, Rather Ripped is not ‘bad’ per se, it’s mostly just that it really lacks something the band usually has, which makes the project feel a little soulless. Still, the record has its better moments. “Pink Stream” is rather ethereal sounding, which is pretty rare in the band’s discography given their usual penchant for the bombastic and ear-shattering, or the ominous and unsettling. “Turquoise Boy” is also a nice mellow track that probably could’ve fit in quite well as one of many solid tracks on A Thousand Leaves, albeit most of those tracks would still trounce this one.

Rather Ripped is all-around competent; it’s a pretty consistent listen and a decent enough beginner-level Sonic Youth album in terms of accessibility. But there’s just nothing about this album that really grabs me like literally any of their other LPs. There’s almost none of the band’s personality on this record (save perhaps Thurston’s inflated ego). Perhaps it is best to call it their “least interesting” album instead of their “worst”. Honestly, you could just skip this one and you probably wouldn’t miss much.

6/10

highlights: “Pink Stream”, “Turquoise Boy”

14. The Eternal (2009)

Main Genres: Indie Rock, Alternative Rock

A decent sampling of: Noise Rock

The Eternal is the last LP Sonic Youth put out as a band. With context, the record has somewhat of a somber feeling. Even its name ‘The Eternal’ seems to suggest that the band might’ve known that it would be their last record, as if the album could be at least partially a reflection on the band’s legacy that will eventually go on to outlive each member.

The band really does sound a little burnt out at multiple points on this record, particularly in terms of Thurston’s vocals which can be best described as sounding ‘exhausted’. Again, like Rather Ripped, the music is certainly competent and enjoyable, but it’s also noticeably less adventurous than on earlier LPs. The album is also a bit more sluggish than most of the band’s past work, feeling just about as long as Daydream Nation or Washing Machine despite being well over 10 minutes shorter than either of those LPs.

I’ll be perfectly honest: if it weren’t for “Massage The History”, this record probably wouldn’t be all that much better than Rather Ripped. Kim Gordon gets to have the very last words on the record with this grim and cryptic requiem about hers and Thurston’s relationship, indicating that she was at least partially aware at the time that the two of them were growing apart.

This would be the last album Sonic Youth put out before Kim became fully aware of Thurston’s affair with a younger woman, leading to her divorce and the band’s inevitable breakup. The song is honestly kind of painful to listen to for that reason, but it is also tragically and morbidly beautiful. “Massage The History” is chronologically the last track in the entire Sonic Youth discography which stretches across 15 LPs over the course of three decades, and it’s a very worthy swan song for the band, if also a bitter reminder that most things cannot last.

“Malibu Gas Station” is another standout, a nocturnal alternative rock jam that sounds very much like a track from the Sister-Daydream Nation-Goo era, and yet another example of Kim Gordon’s capabilities as a member of the band. Really, Kim basically carries this entire LP on her shoulders in terms of the lyrics and vocals.

Nevertheless, I like this record for what it represents if nothing else, and I would still say that it is a level above Rather Ripped thanks to the album closer, and more on par with the next couple of albums on this list. However, I would never recommend that anyone start their Sonic Youth journey with this LP. You can listen to their discography in just about any order you want to, but I’d highly recommend that you save this one for last. The Eternal is a mostly bittersweet experience that is best appreciated after hearing the rest of the band’s output.

7/10

highlights: “Massage The History”, “Malibu Gas Station”

13. Experimental Jet Set, Trash, And No Star (1994)

Main Genres: Noise Rock, Alternative Rock

A decent sampling of: Experimental Rock, Post-Punk

Experimental Jet Set, Trash, And No Star came right after the modest commercial success of Goo and Dirty, and I think you can hear on this LP that the band is reacting to that success by trying to resharpen some of the edges that were smoothed out by Butch Vig’s production on Dirty. Basically, this sounds rather like Dirty but less put-together, less consistent, and a lot more raw.

I appreciate that they wanted to do their own thing and challenge expectations again, and you can really tell that the band is mostly playing around on this record, but in this case I gotta say that the songwriting seems to suffer a little because of that.

The album starts off promising enough with two major highlights. First, there’s a rare acoustic offering with the lo-fi opener “Winner’s Blues”, the first of many tracks that would appear on later Sonic Youth LPs proving that Thurston’s vocals can actually be quite soothing. Then there’s the winding, topsy-turvy patterns of “Bull In The Heather” where lyrically Kim mocks the infantilization of women in her usual snarky, sing-talking fashion. Later on the record, there’s also “Bone” which has a very sinister, bluesy swagger to it that I really enjoy.

But everything else from here on out is kind of a mixed bag. The main setback really seems to be the track lengths; it’s actually pretty weird for a Sonic Youth album at this point in the band’s career to be full of songs that are mostly only two or three minutes long like they are on Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star. That’s not inherently bad of course, but a lot of these tracks really only sound like ‘parts’ of a Sonic Youth song; some really good ideas, but largely underdeveloped.

Take “Starfield Road” for example, which takes a whole minute to build up this really cool and bizarre turbulent sound storm, and then Thurston starts singing over it for a couple of bars until it all sorta just stops abruptly. This track could work in theory if it was structured differently. “Mildred Pierce” off of Goo does something similar, but with that track there’s pay off at the end with the sudden wicked, destructive breakdown which catches you off guard, but here there’s simply no pay off for the listener.

Combine the lack of complete songwriting with the fact that this is actually one of the longest tracklistings on any Sonic Youth album at 14 tracks, and you get an album that feels like it’s bloated with lots of filler. Mind you, there’s still a lot of great little moments on this LP, but very few of them come together to make great songs. It’s an excellent sampler of just how many different ways Sonic Youth can play with a riff or make weird new static noises, but with regards to songwriting, Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star feels more like a collection of demo tapes than a proper album. Still, there’s some cool energy on this record and I’d say it’s a worthwhile listen for any diehard fan.

7/10

highlights: “Bull In The Heather”, “Bone”, “Winner’s Blues”

12. NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000)

Main Genres: Experimental Rock, Noise Rock, Art Rock

A decent sampling of: Post-Rock, Art Punk, Beat Poetry, No Wave

This is a good example of why we can’t have nice things. Somewhere between A Thousand Leaves and this record, Sonic Youth had most of their gear stolen by some jackass, which effectively meant pressing a hard reset button on the band’s sound for at least one album.

Likewise, a lot of people say that this is their worst record, and yeah I get why those people feel that way, but I actually like NYC Ghosts & Flowers for the fact that it forced the band to undergo yet another major sonic transformation. It��s certainly more consistently interesting than Rather Ripped or The Eternal, just a very strange album in general, and for that it gets some extra points. I should also mention that this is the first of a couple of albums where the band collaborated with the acclaimed avant-garde artist Jim O’Rourke.

With lyrics influenced by the legendary mid-20th century ‘beat poetry’ scene born out of the band’s own New York City, this is the most 'abstract' Sonic Youth ever sounded. You can hear hints of the band’s no wave origins on this record, but with all of the crude chaos of those early LPs replaced with cerebral tension.

It’s also more sparse than any of their other studio albums, even more so than the dark and intangible Bad Moon Rising. Unfortunately, in this case that also leads to some tracks like “Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)” feeling somewhat empty, or perhaps sometimes too monotonous or repetitive without enough sonically gratifying moments.

But there are exceptions, and the middle portion of this album is where the new formula mostly thrives. “Small Flowers Crack Concrete” is vivid post-rock art poetry, not unlike a more noisy, sporadic version of some of the songs off of Slint’s beloved post-rock classic Spiderland. “Side2Side” is very aurally pleasing, with plinkety guitar staccatos and Kim’s voice hopping from one ear to the other like some kind of noise rock ASMR.

“StreamXSonik Subway” is a freaky little track that sounds calmly menacing, and I really like the high-pitch computer-y bloops. But then right after that there’s the seven and a half minute title track “NYC Ghosts & Flowers” which could probably give me a headache if I didn’t distract myself with something else while I was listening to it; truly maybe the worst track of the band’s entire discography if I was asked to pick one.

Overall, I’d say that NYC Ghosts & Flowers is a very artistic and fascinating experience in the moment, but I don’t really end up remembering much of it an hour or two after listening to the record. It just doesn’t really stay with me like some of their other records, and I don’t often feel the need to revisit this LP. I think Sonic Youth does the whole ‘sparseness' thing better when they’re aiming to sound vast, haunting, or nihilistic, as opposed to this kind of small, cerebral, sit-down-in-an-empty-room-and-listen experience which I personally find a bit more suited to other bands.

That being said, I applaud them for taking a lot of risks on this one, and I genuinely like NYC Ghosts & Flowers for the moments where it really does seem to be on the cusp of something groundbreaking. It's also a pretty polarizing record for most listeners, so maybe you’ll love it.

7/10

highlights: “Small Flowers Crack Concrete”, “Side2Side“, “StreamXSonik Subway”