#idk i just went with wildly vague concepts

[reading-stains]

Land of Spirits - Case Files

Welp, I don't think they're even poetry prompts anymore (which is what I'd meant them to be), they're more like prompted conceptual writing that is sometimes poetry, sometimes short stories, and sometimes a "creative experience" of sorts.

So anyway, I'm sending it late because I needed to format it, but this is my entry for @nosebleedclub's prompt 12, "Land of spirits" and it's clear I didn't get creative with my own titling.

Hope whoever reads this enjoys!

PREMISE: You're given a set of files on data from veterans that have gone through the Land of Spirits. You hope to learn a little from what you're going to face. Oh, and there's some strange notes from a 'seer' at the bottom, but you don't really get what they mean.

So anyway, there you have it. Hope you stick to the non-combatant ones for today, they seem pretty nice.

[xplrvibes]

So all the costumes are out now, can we have your costume ratings for Sam and Colby this year now?

You certainly can!

With a caveat.

Actually, two caveats.

So, 1: I could only find 4 of Sam's costumes. I don't know if I'm missing one or if he just never posted one or what, but I only see 4.

2: I'm going to address the elephant in the room right now, which is Malia. Here's my thing: I didn't think any of her costumes were groundbreaking. But I have seen some unbelievably weird and wildly inappropriate shit being said quite openly about her, her body, and her costumes - shit that crosses a lot of fucking lines in my opinion - and it's making me not want any part of critiquing her because I don't even want to crack that door open and allow that shit to barge right on in to my blog.

So, the only mentions I will be making of Malia and her costumes will be how they correlate to Colby's, and that's it.

Anyway, with that said, here's my rankings:

Sam:

1. Leather jacket cool guy (?): alright, so I don't know if he was going for a greaser type thing, or the Fonz, or what, and that's kind of my beef with this costume. It's seriously just a leather jacket and sunglasses. Nothing has been done with his hair or anything to indicate what he was truly going for here, so it's a little on the vague side for me.

The concept was there, I just would've liked to see more in the execution. I think doing the old greased back hair, the duck tail or whatever they called it, and then carrying a comb or something would've gone a long way.

Rating: 5/10

2. Letterman jacket guy: This was just lazy. Colby Brock wearing a koala onesie for 6 years levels of lazy. No.

Rating: 2/10

3. Lifeguard: the fanny pack was...a choice, but at least he went out and got a whole outfit. A random outfit, but the concept was there and executed without looking like some kind of last minute hobbled together "oh shit, I need something!" nonsense.

Rating: 6/10

4. Willy Wonka: In a sea of mediocrity, this was a pretty decent, fully fledged costume. I have to give him credit for the gloves and the cane, which he appeared to keep with him all night. I can't really find any fault with this one, random though it may be.

Rating: 8/10

Sam's worst: Letterman jacket

Sam's best: Willy Wonka

.

Colby:

1. Tin Man: This one was actually really involved. I love that he went as far as having his whole face painted and his hair spray painted silver to match. That's commitment that I quite frankly never expected from him.

I also really loved the 1,000 yard stare he was giving in that one tiktok. Idk, that just made me laugh.

I also like the concept of him being the Tin Man, of all the characters in Oz - the guy with the most empathy and compassion who still thinks he doesn't have a heart and yearns for it until it's lifted to him at the end, at which point he realizes he's been a softie the whole time. Seems apt.

He loses points for the lazy ass shoes, though.

Rating: 8/10

2. The priest: I just liked the eyeliner, idk.

To me, it was very much giving 2005 Gerard Way vibes, but I know some people were discomforted by it, which is fine. I personally just saw it as some early 2000s or even 90s emo goth couture...very MCR, or even very 90s fashion show-esque. Idk. I didn't love it, but the concept was weirdly nostalgic to me.

Rating: 6.5/10

3. The Tomb Raider one: Look, I don't know video games, so this one went over my head a bit (ok, a lot).

But I'd say this one was the most creative on Malia's part, and I know this was a costume Colby has mentioned doing for a long time now, so it's cool that he finally got to knock that off his bucket list.

If I knew what the fuck any if this represented, I could probably judge it better. But since I don't know the lore, I can only say I appreciate the eyeliner and the attention to detail with the makeup made to look like dirt and bruises. I thought Malia had genuinely burned her leg somehow. I had a split second of concern 🤣. That's good makeup.

Rating: 7/10

4. The Wolf: Nope! Liked it better when I thought it was this:

I liked Malia's corset, and I actually kind of liked the pictures she posted of them. I see the vision, I just...hate the reality. He looks like a grandma. He looks like a homeless cat. He looks like anything but a Wolf. I'm so confused.

And why did he have whiskers?

Rating: 3/10

5. The nerds (?): At some point, the genesis of this whole costume needs to be explained. I still don't necessarily see teacher/student (and again - *raises hand* former Catholic school student here, which is what I know people are getting at with that statement) but I also don't see anything of interest in this costume at all. He bought the cardigan off Amazon. It's not even from an existing costume. I know, cause I reverse imaged it to try and get to the bottom of this. This shit is home grown.

I don't like it. It's boring, it's a nothing burger, and yet it's cause so much controversy, which I suppose is the Colby Brock way.

Rating: 1/10

6. Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Bunny: I get the genesis of this one, I do. I think it's either 1. really weirdly sweet or, 2. just weird for this to be what they're wearing, given Malia's lineage. I don't know for sure if that was an homage, but I can't imagine it wasn't.

That being said - Colby ambling around his party in a half open bathrobe and sailor hat, clearly drunk off his ass and wanting to go home more than I've ever seen anyone want to go home from their own party before, is kind of funny to me.

This was either a nice but weird homage or the height of laziness (since she had already previously dressed up as a bunny, and finding a Hef costume is as easy as going to Spirit Halloween). Either could be true. Both could be true. Who's to say.

Rating: 4/10

Colby's worst: the wolf

Colby's best: Tin Man

[zeravmeta]

Ok so, my thoughts on the VR ending and VR overall as the 6th entry.

Also because most of my thoughts aren't...complimentary im editing the names so they dont appear in the general tag. This also got LONG so readmore.

The Good:

- A//i's character still managed to be the one thing that saves VR as a show for me. Even with all the weird...contradictory plot issues, A//i still manages to be a compelling character who brings up the question of the right to live. I actually do like how he made it so itd be an ultimatum that he loses in either way, even if the ending kinda ruins the weight behind the action (which I will get to in a bit).

The meh:

-the ending was left somewhat open to interpretation which for a show as...empty as this was works out but honestly it was so vague as to A//is fate is that it may as well not exist.

The Bad:

-The main conflict behind the entire show is...simulations. No joke. Every conflict in the show can be traced back to someone doing a simulation and deciding to lose it. Even if they gave the (rather stupid) explanation that AI experience simulations like actual life (which btw the first villain wasnt an AI so this reason doesnt work), the fact that Yu//sa//ku took a bullet for one of A//is robot bodies that he literally has millions of is...just stupid and there solely for the "uwu drama".

-They actually killed A//i off but wait hes actually alive, so like the final duel literally had no purpose aside from...drama??? The episode is called Compromise and yet A//i had to lose just to keep Yu//sa///kus win streak and theres no compromise whatsoever. Yu//sa//ku litetally destroys the CompromA.I.se card so its just, no comrpomise in any way.

-This....wasn't a happy ending??? I have no idea why both the show and the fanbase frame this as a happy ending bc think about it in context: A//i pretty much loses everything, so does Yu//sa//ku who just isolated himself from everyone else for 3 months in order to comb the network for whatever remnants of A//i exist.

- So many of the supporting characters are just...there. Like, there is no side/supporting character who actually has a character arc in this show. Lets go through the list: Ao//i is pretty much the same character as when she started and goes through 2 unnecessary costume changes for a character growth that isnt there because she has literally ONE victory against an opponent that was stated multiple times to be weak and faulty and have her lose and tortured multiple times for no reason whatsoever, G//o had this weird deterioration that may have lead to something but ultimately didn't, Ak//ira is pretty much the same, J//in has ALL HIS TRAUMA ERASED SO THERES THAT, literally the only side characters who have some sembalnce of an arc are Sho//ichi (the best one anyways) from his "betrayal" in S2, and E//ma with her reconciliation with her brother. Outside of that, nothing. Yu//sa//ku, Re//volv//er and Ho//mu//ra are pretty much the only characters with an arc and even then they're not too solid? Which brings me to-

- Yu//sa//ku has been so wildly ooc since the end of S1. Ive seen so many say that his enphasis on bonds and friendship are character growth but actually looking at the sequence of events he suddenly just like. changes completely around his first duel with Ea//rth. Plus, the message of "revenge is good" was always so weird? Like, he got his revenge so all his trauma is ok now and never brought up or explored again aside from within the first 20 episodes. Theres nothing about it after that and its never built upon. The whole point of a revenge arc is to show that its BAD and yet he starts preaching that revenge is wrong AFTER he successfully gets revenge??? And even then its not exactly a revenge as it is more lashing out since it was Ko//ga//mi who was behind it all. Yu//sa/ku was definitely at his strongest characterization in S1 where we see how badly the Lo//st Incid//ent hurt him but S1 had its own share of problems that led into S2 and so many random plot threads that never went anywhere (such as the Anot//her Incid//ents, the Cy//berse deck being irl despite that A//i didnt have a physical body before then, The Bl//ue Mai//den meetup that was repeated by Nao//ki like 10 times in S2 which seemed to be leading up to something but never did, and the fact that theres 4 recap episodes in S1 already spelled some early problems). So much of the supporting cast function to just say "he turned this whole situation around...with ONE card..." i kid you not watch back every Yu//sa//ku duel I GUARANTEE you'll see someone saying hes a great duelist and serve only that purpose. ALSO THE END OF THE SHOW IS JUST MORE DRAMA?? They make him suffer for no reason other than that they can??? What purpose does his suffering at the end serve aside from just "uwu...poor baby..."???

-Re//volv//er is not a good rival. At all. He's so incredibly bland because much like Yu//sa//ku he was at his strongest characterization in S1 where he actually had some solid motivation in continuing his fathers work and being unable to accept that his dad was evil, yet most of that just flies out the window with all the collateral he's willing to inflict with the K//O//H?? All his character amounts too post S1 is "yeah i told you robots are evil and YOU didnt believe me". The most we got of him growing out of this mindset was calling A//i by his name exactly one time and nothing ever again. Also the fact that in the end we see him and his crew working for S//O//L despite the fact that they were gonna turn themselves in for their crimes just. leaves a rotten taste in my mouth. hes not a good rival at all. All he proves to me is that a good design can get anyone to like a character.

- Ho//mu//ra is...there. I literally cant say anything about him because he absolutely has the strongest motivations of the three but then the show jumps through hoops to push him to the back of the other two. He also has a bunch of early victories I do feel are undeserved (ESPECIALLY the A//oi duel that one pissed me off so much). Also the fact that the show just made him Yu//sa//kus friend immediately whereas it took Sho//ichi several months to get Yu//sa//ku to warm up to him just had me :/.

-The speed duels were a cool concept but they just became these huge cheat fests? Seriously Play//Maker uses StAccess literally every speed duel to pull out a new monster from whatever plot holes the writers need to patch up. I am not kidding. You can go back to every single speed duel Yu//sa//ku was in and youll see this. Skills just werent a good mechanic because when a protag pulls a new card its supposed to be representative of some growth/characterization but he stays the same pretty much throughout the entire show up until S2 where he wildly just switches personality. Plus the fact that Que//en could literally use a skill whenever just shows that it was cheating???

- The villains were overall lackluster. Boh//man was the best because Re//volv//er is just flat whereas A//i struck me more as an anti hero. And again: simulations are the enemy. Light//ning ran one and decided to go ham. Kog//ami ran one and decided to go ham. A//i ran one and decided to go ham. The conflicts are all the same and it just makes things happen rather than following a consistent plot thread? I will say that Boh//mans characterization of a hive mind to become perfect does strike my tastes but thats more my personal preference in villains rather than any merit he has.

- This is a bit of a personal pet peeve but I've seen some of the praise to this show about being the "darkest Y//G//O to date so therefore its good" and im just...no? Edge does not make a good show and just because they lightly focused on the tragedy in Yu//sa//kus life (and it IS lightly because its barely touched upon after mid S1) most of the stuff that happens in this show is pretty tame in comparison? The most that happened here was an attempted global hack of everyones minds from S2 and destroying the internet in S1, with a few references to the torture that happened during the Lo//st incid//ent. To compare: the previous series had this huge interdimensional war that, even if they could reverse the carding of people (which makes Den//nis' attempted suicide even more tragic), ended with an entire dimensions full of brainwashed soldier children, a dimension with huge class inequality that was still being heavily worked upon since there were canonically slaves, and a dimension that was savaged by a genocide and total global destruction. Hell, the series before that had a huge war where the arc actually did focus on the tragedys the characters faced and held consequence (even if they pulled a dbz revive everyone at the end). And as far back into the very first series there were even more graphic depictions of war and death? Idk i feel like people are overplaying the edge here just to find a way to complement this show.

Overall:

I'm...genuinely dissappointed. VR really had so many strong starting points but it all just fell apart at execution. Really the only reason I even bothered to watch it as kong as I did was because Im a longtime fan of the series and wanted to give it a chance rather than jump on whatever love/hate train the show has. Its been rated poorly on the JP side and most of the approval is a vocal minority. Just to be clear: this isnt me bashing the show, my opinions are mine and you can agree or disagree to any capacity, and even if a show isnt well written you can still find a reason to enjoy it despite the flaws.

But if Im being perfectly honest? I do not like this show. It's rushed, choppy, has no consistent or clear plot threads, most of the genuinely interesting characters are wasted for the protagonist to look better and he never really does because he ALSO has an interesting idea behind him but it never goes anywhere. It started strong but ended so poorly. Id be angry but im more dissappointed because Ive watched this show from day 1 and wanted to see the good things it has rather than focus on the negatibes but. yeah. This show really had potential and yet it just fell flat.

[amoebo-id]

a o t d !!!

no more than 1 release per artist to keep it interesting. selection and ranking is arbitrary and would prob be wildly different if i did this tomorrow. also i only went down to #42 cause everything after that didn’t feel like real aotd status - at least as far as the specific relationships i built over the past 10 yrs with the music i was listening to

#1 laurel halo quarantine

nobody did machine-body dialectic like laurel halo in 2012. i loved everything else from her this decade too but every time i listened to Carcass it made me leave my body physically. absolutely unreal album art too

https://laurelhalo.bandcamp.com/track/carcass-2

#2 e+e the light that you gave me to see you

2012 was a good year. pop/ambient/noise/radio-dj-tag sound collage ascended to spiritual intensity. makes you feel like a child experiencing awe. also fire-gut used to have probably my favorite music video ever but i think it’s gone now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-SSuwW9cw

#3 ilovemakonnen 5

not to be confused with Drink More Water 5, this one’s from 2010 during his mostly-forgotten diy outsider-pop phase. off-key singing and amateur beats and the sheer absolute joy of making cool songs. all 5 are perfect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORKpg_-z0Mk

#4 macintosh plus floral shoppe

would’ve made top 10 on album art alone. music, aesthetics, and cultural impact are inseparable here but going back to the album reminded me just how engaging its 2010s-updated chopped-and-screwed sound is, musically not just conceptually

https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/track/420

#5 jason lescalleet this is what i do 17

hard to pick a favorite from jason lescalleet’s semi-monthly document of his electroacoustic / field recording / tape loop practice but i’ve cried to multiple tracks on tiwid 17 so it gets the nod. couldn’t find any of them online so here’s something else of his

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t33x8OOm68E

#6 barrio sur बड़ा शोक (heart break)

dedekind cut guy’s weird one-off side project ended up being my favorite thing to come out of the last few years’ obsession w cowboy/western/country music/aesthetics. pure mystery

https://soundcloud.com/user-366783613/redemption-7inch

#7 cities aviv come to life

i think maybe people thought cities aviv was just another no-flow pseudo-”conscious rap” type rapper in 2014 but actually this album is nuts. hyper-energetic vaporwave rap? what if death grips were happy? idk

https://citiesaviv.bandcamp.com/track/url-irl-2

#8 beach boys the smile sessions

this cool fresh 1960s rock myth arrived fully formed and way more fun than the other ones. brian wilson’s concepts and songwriting got so unwieldy we had to wait 50 years to hear the sessions. i don’t care about conversations about his genius or whatever these songs kick ass

https://oldmasterpainter.bandcamp.com/track/surfs-up

#9 mindspring memories & intl. debris international memories

did this really only come out in 2017? i feel like i’ve been listening to it since i was born. tangential lateral kind of wormhole out of vaporwave into two meditative spiritual infinite-feeling loops that perfectly complement each other

https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/sad-horizons

#10 nyege nyege tapes sounds of sisso

absolutely obnoxiously insanely high energy high pitch high bpm dance music. i can’t believe this isn’t what people mean when they say future bass. set me down the path of historical and contemporary non-”global north” ideas about dance/rhythm/bass which i’m still on

https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/track/mshamba-video-mster

#11 blithe field face always toward the sun

the most gorgeous implementation of the sorta-ambient guitar-looping vignette aesthetic. is this a real trope or did i listen to this album so much i convinced myself it was a thing? for me this is the sound of what its like to feel completely content with life and at ease in the moment

https://blithefield.bandcamp.com/track/zen-den

#12 anohni hopelessness

listening to this album and singing along while driving my car made me feel absolutely disgusting. unbelievable hooks, grossly hi fi sound design, and overblown drama add up to imo a scary effective type of explicitly political or ‘protest’ music

https://anohni.bandcamp.com/track/drone-bomb-me

#13 21 savage, offset, & metro boomin without warning

why is these 3 pop stars’ vaguely halloween-themed one-off collab my favorite trap album? 21 savage, offset, and metro boomin were all wildly corny in different ways but everything was perfectly balanced. i hope metro boomin makes like one seriously ambient album next decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWv-bR_X-VM&list=PLC1uUM4twa8i6zsD_Sn1LRUq4vhl_PLCx&index=11&t=0s

#14 laura les big summer jams 2018

‘crying in the club’ type bangers with no fear of ugliness and no fear of beauty and no fear of wildly unfashionable tropes like skrillex-y dubstep and guitar solos. so much input from other trans/queer artists it felt like a big t4t party

https://osno1.bandcamp.com/track/the-river-feat-scum-yung-skrrt-and-99jakes

#15 triad god nxb

the other triad god tape from 7 years later is just as good. what was this man doing in the intervening time? i just imagine him riding london public transit while it rains or something. i love knowing that most of his cantonese spoken-word/rap parts are insults and jokes rather than like, melancholy observations

https://soundcloud.com/hipposintanks/triad-god-remand

#16 dj koze knock knock

what if pop music sounded like this? somehow every song on here is wildly danceable, wildly sing-alongable, and also wildly detail-oriented. feels like a transmission from an alternate present where things are okay

https://djkoze.bandcamp.com/track/club-der-ewigkeiten

#17 ��ocora world of traditional music

box set of “world music” recordings from the label that french electronic composer pierre schaeffer started in the 1950s as a project to teach people in rural west africa how to dj. ethnography can be a fucked up idea but afaik ocora is one of the good ones and if you can sorta try to disengage from the tropes/cliches that get imposed on it, the music is phenomenal. hard to find a track specific to this box set but here’s another from the label

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJm8rn6gW5I

#18 oneohtrix point never replica

opn feels like an artist i’ve ‘grown out of’ i guess but samples never felt more alive or more dead than they did on replica. set a template for the kind of melancholy ‘soundscape’-y vibe that i spent years trying to find more of after

https://oneohtrixpointnever1.bandcamp.com/track/power-of-persuasion

#19 rihanna anti

the most perfect imaginable pop album. i keep trying to move it higher up. i almost put club chai vol 1 on this list purely cause of the Woo remix but then i remembered the original is better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dDCUKElEwk

#20 colleen a flame my love a frequency

colleen’s ultra deadpan singing and wriggly rhythmic synth put me in a trance. everything sounded dry as hell even though it was covered in reverb. i think maybe some people were put off by the corny song names and lyrics

https://colleencolleen.bandcamp.com/track/separating

#21 dj paypal drake edits

back when drake seemed like a sorta-shitty dude rather than seriously creepy, dj paypal used the power of footwork to expose both the melancholy-ambient modality and the serious-bass-music modality latent in his voice and beats

https://mallmusicinc.com/track/brand-new

#22 huerco s. for those of you who have never (and also those who have)

not really as ambient as it first seems imo, but rather like a really intense focus on what we mean when we describe things as ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. i know it’s corny but i wanna say these tracks are fully both and fully neither

https://brianleeds.bandcamp.com/track/promises-of-fertility

#23 girls rituals reddishness

for a track so deliberately shitty-sounding I Know had no right to be so fucking danceable. persona and production synthesized into the only ‘singer-songwriter’ music i could really get into

https://temporaryenjoyment.bandcamp.com/track/i-know

#24 chromatics kill for love

fakeass 80s retro melancholia digitized and pushed so far past pastiche it turned into pure slime. the phone call in There’s A Light Out On The Horizon came straight from the void

https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

#25 actress ghettoville

the only genuinely post-apocalyptic music. specifically the postapocalypse in wall-e but if there was no wall-e to clean it up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCPdfUFq6k

#26 playboi carti die lit

every beat on this album was reducible to a 4-second loop that perpetually demanded its own repetition and playboi carti somehow knew exactly what to do with them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2pjiKmhlAI

#27 charli xcx vroom vroom

the charli xcx that came after this was fun, but there was black hole levels of power compacted into when she said vroom vroom on Vroom Vroom

https://soundcloud.com/vroomvroomrecordings/charli-xcx-vroom-vroom

#28 pacific breeze: japanese city pop, aor & boogie 1976-1986

it’s kind of amazing to think that this compilation only exists because vaporwave aesthetics made ‘japanese grocery-store kitsch from the 80s’ a marketable thing in the us. anyway every single one of these is an absolute bop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl91bvEKj20

#29 young thug barter 6

i can’t get enough of listening to young thug’s voice. i’ve seen his rhythmic-melodic-textural sensibility described as virtuosic and i don’t know really if that term means anything but it feels right to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg9ZxQKSDuw

#30 magic eye babylon

smeared dreamy lo-fi guitar music w wistful buried melodies pushed to an extreme. every song sounded the same and i wish there was more than the one cassette

https://magiceye.bandcamp.com/track/flame

#31 tirzah devotion

you could say this was ‘stripped down’ r&b but i think more accurately what separated it was that every sound stood exactly and only for itself

https://tirzah.bandcamp.com/track/basic-need

#32 mount eerie clear moon

it’s amazing how well mount eerie navigated the move from a lo-fi sound/mode/affect to a hi-fi sound/mode/affect. clear moon wasn’t his first attempt but it was the one that most embodied the feeling of the new possilibities that had been opened up

https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-trees-pt-2

#33 kelela aquaphoria

this mix was such a good idea it immediately seemed shocking nobody else had tried afaik. and kelela executed it so well you forgot the tracks already existed in other contexts

https://soundcloud.com/kelelam/aquaphoria

#34 james ferraro skid row

not sure what it means that the only james ferraro i really love is also the one i think of as the least abstract/conceptual. his recited lyrics had a rare spoken-word-poetic power

https://breakworldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/to-live-and-die-in-la

#35 salyu x salyu s(o)un(d)beams

absolutely unbounded sense of joy and creativity and possibility hovering between bangers-lite and ‘soundscape’-y electronic manipulation

https://soundcloud.com/snouu/salyu-x-salyu-s-o-un-d-beams

#36 dj rashad just a taste vol 1

double cup got all the press but it was so smoothed-over it could never have done something as absurdly beautiful as Ghost or even Go Crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHPAbte9U

#37 yves tumor serpent music

i’m sorta put off by the high-gloss sheen of music like this but serpent music somehow had the right combination of total cohesion and a ridiculous density of impactful moments

https://soundcloud.com/pan_hq/yves-tumor-the-feeling-when-you-walk-away-pan-73?in=pan_hq/sets/yves-tumor-serpent-music-pan

#38 maral mahur club

lo-fi beat collage elevated to something that could actually genuinely be called world music

https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/track/avesta-khani-reggaeton

#39 lucki ecks watch my back

did not expect this super low-stakes sadboy trap to end up on this list but i love his min-effort flow and somehow every beat is exactly the vibe even when the tracks aren’t volume balanced

https://soundcloud.com/boob7/leave-wit-you-prod-plu2o-nash-clams-casino?in=boob7/sets/watch-my-back

#40 arca stretch 2

not sure why i get more out of arca’s nonsense broken-beat non-rap than any of her later projects

https://unonyc.bandcamp.com/track/tapped-in

#41 klein only

a new way to do fucked up noise w pop leanings. ‘audacitycore’

https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/track/pretty-black-2

#42 city arcadia

another mysterious transmission, this time w lots of harp

https://soundcloud.com/halcyon-veil/city-arcadia

[unproduciblesmackdown]

How did you discover DEH? :)

hilarious story!!!!

no it’s not funny but it’s just an unusual route, probably

like i was vaguely Aware of deh as it was existing (at least around the time the broadway run was happening and stuff)......i wanna say the first Specific time i took note on it was seeing the news about roman banks being the first standby(?) whatever i just will say Alternate Evan of color and i was like well that’s great. one of the reasons i would base the way i draw evan off of roman when i eventually got around to showing up and slapping some art down on the countertop

completely unrelatedly but owl city is one of the only artists i have listened to near-comprehensively. a complete fluke. with other artists i like it’s lucky if i listen to One album in whole. anyways, so he gets asked to do a cover of wtaw, and does, and youtube recommends it to me, and i’m like oh hell yeah this fucks. and i listen to it a million times, spiritually doing the worm, and i Know i’m like okay i Know this song has further context in the show but also at further points in the show. you just Know. so i go ahead and read the wikipedia summary for deh just so i can appreciate the drama right? and it works, obviously, im like oh aha all this falling in a forest stuff, got it. anyways, this is like, july 2017 or something. the summer after the bway run kicked off. 

i Remember at that time like, just reading the vague wikipedia synopsis, that jared caught my attention. he wasnt mentioned all that much but i remember the points of “jared is evan’s friend but are they very close? possibly not really, either way evan is not Heartwarmed by their relationship” and that jared was not wildly enthusiastic about evan’s endeavors, and then the second thing was that jared was angry and upset with evan later on for Friendship Reasons. and already that struck me as being the “character who hides their emotions and acts like it’s No Big Deal and they don’t care very much but actually they are deeply emotional and it IS a big deal and they care extremely much” that i’m likely to go ballistic about. the character Fascinated me right off just with that little glimpse of him b/c of those vibes and i always gave a bit of extra focus to him when in the following months i eventually learned a little bit more about a couple other songs. i had enough context to know what was going on in sincerely me already for example, and i think i at least listened to good for you further along the line

i’d revisit the wtaw cover frequently enough, but it wasn’t really until the next summer that i was thinking more about deh overall even though i really didn’t know much. i guess b/c it was just around the anniversary of my Being More Aware Of Deh B/c Of That Wtaw Cover Coming Out In June Or July Or Smthing maybe? idk

and yet still i didn’t like, really get into it get into it for months. for one thing, i was largely offline for that summer, reading a dictionary or lotr instead probably, rip. but i kinda had the sense that it was the sort of thing i would inevitably choose to Look Into in a focused way. like, capital-F Focus, right. and it was!!! i think i started really kind of digging into it more around last halloween. but, already on brand, i wasn’t even starting my investigation by trying to find out more about deh in general. i started off by specifically doing some more research into finding out as much canon info as i could about jared’s character in particular, lmao. and of course i was right and Was p much immediately real into that character and i was like yes. this is the content i want

it also did not take long for me to latch on to the concept of jared being in love with evan. i’m pretty sure it was essentially concurrent, in fact. because it’s obvious thank you

my research of course also meant that i was getting into fan content (jared/kleinsen centric still, obv. i knew what i was about from the start) and behind-the-scenes content before like, making any attempt to consume canon. around this stage of things (late oct? early nov for sure but probably late october through early nov) i was also Aware Of Will Roland pretty quickly. and that one post someone made about how nice he is was like, well if you’re the guy who was jared and you’re also great then obviously, i will probably die for you. i was right about that obviously but it was not as clear in those earliest times as it would become later on in nov / dec, but still, having one person i was definitely Here For in the cast only gave me further reason to check out some behind the scenes type stuff. i distinctly remember seeing the “never have i ever” video in my youtube recommendations and going “well if i watch this i’m probably officially up to my neck in it. i bet i am going to watch it who am i kidding.” and i watched it like a day later and had a great time. and i know this came before me throwing out some fanart for the people. which i know came before my actually finally watching the damn illegal canon. had a great time. just cranked out a fic during the frequent buffering pauses. that’s a fact

aaaand that probably counts as being Officially into it and it all went from there and that’s the story i guess.......we have great times

[subject004]

[  dylan  wang  ·  cismale  ·  he/him  ·  19  ]  ❝  hey  !!  did  you  see  four  /  jian  liu  walking  into  the  woods  ??  i’ve  heard  they’ve  been  described  as  well-meaning  by  their  close  friends  .  but  ,  i’ve  also  heard  that  they’ve  been  described  as  pretty  enigmatic  by  others  .  if  there  were  three  things  that  could  describe  them  ,  it  would  be  blood  dripping  into  murky  water  ,  lovecraftian  horror  ,  and  chugging  coffee  at  odd  hours  of  the  night  .  here’s  to  hoping  they  don’t  get  trapped  in  the  upside  down  !!  ❞

hi  i’m  bailey  and  i’m  a  literal  snail  .  welcome  to  my  dumb  intro  !

cw  :  kidnapping  ,  human  testing  ??  you  know  ,  hawkins  lab  usual  .  also  ,  pretty  long  because  idk  how  to  stop  rambling  .

the  night  of  may  14th  ,  1966  ,  two  members  of  the  CPC  welcomed  their  first  child  .  the  couple  tried  and  tried  for  years  ,  and  were  finally  given  their  long  awaited  little  boy  :  LIU  JIAN  .  he  quickly  became  the  light  of  their  lives  .  however  in  just  three  years  ,  that  light  would  be  ripped  away  from  them  .

he  was  taken  to  america  —  a  small  town  where  no  one  would  suspect  ,  a  small  town  harboring  a  secret  .  hawkins  ,  indiana  .  he  was  terrified  ,  confused  ,  and  wouldn’t  stop  crying  until  they  eventually  sedated  him  .  there  were  whispers  ,  rumors  ,  about  a  small  child  in  china  with  possible  ...  gifts  ,  and  naturally  within  their  previous  (  and  ongoing  )  tests  ,  they  needed  to  see  for  themselves  .  and  they  couldn’t  let  the  communists  have  this  ,  if  it  was  true  .

it  was  .

NUMBER  FOUR  ,  they  assigned  him  .  he  was  no  longer  jian  ,  no  longer  a  simple  child  .  through  grueling  experiments  ,  pushing  him  past  exhaustion  on  multiple  occasions  ,  they  found  he’s  gifted  with  TELEPATHY  .  at  first  it  was  hard  to  understand  in  translation  of  a  child  who  didn’t  speak  english  ,  but  the  more  they  practiced  ,  it  became  more  apparent  when  focused  .

four  was  subsequently  taught  english  in  the  lab  as  he  aged  ,  because  while  translators  were  available  ,  it  was  “  easier  for  them  all  ”  if  he  learned  .  they  were  correct  in  that  ,  but  it  didn’t  make  the  real  situation  any  better  .

whatever  memories  of  his  parents  he  had  were  slowly  but  surely  leaving  .  whatever  memories  of  a  short  lived  childhood  he  had  were  gone  .

at  the  age  of  eight  ,  they  unlocked  a  new  ability  —  PAIN  INDUCEMENT  —  a  sub-power  of  mental  manipulation  ,  stemming  from  his  telepathy  .  two  of  the  scientists  at  the  lab  had  the  misfortune  of  experiencing  it  firsthand  as  it  began  to  manifest  from  finding  himself  in  a  position  of  danger  ,  since  it  was  during  a  time  he  wasn’t  behaving  as  he  was  expected  to  .

they  decided  to  experiment  even  more  ,  of  course  :  the  limitations  and  circumstances  of  this  newly  developed  ability  .  as  it  would  turn  out  ,  four  can  only  access  pain  inducement  when  he’s  angry  /  feeling  threatened  ,  presumably  as  a  result  of  fight  or  flight  instincts  .

he  didn’t  have  much  contact  with  the  other  children  ,  other  than  intervals  spent  in  the  rainbow  room  ,  and  as  he  grew  older  and  more  distant  he  didn’t  care  .  soon  enough  ,  he  stopped  playing  and  speaking  to  the  others  even  when  they  were  given  that  small  time  .  he  kept  to  himself  ,  drawing  in  a  corner  .  he  liked  art  .  his  drawings  would  often  consist  of  grotesque  monsters  ;  dark  and  wildly  scribbled  ,  as  if  he  was  in  a  rush  to  get  down  what  he  envisioned  .

while  time  went  on  ,  more  and  more  children  escaped  the  lab  ,  leaving  four  one  of  the  last  remaining  .  it  wasn’t  that  four  didn’t  want  his  freedom  ,  to  have  more  than  this  life  of  being  an  experiment  ,  it  was  that  he  was  kind  of  scared  of  it  ?  it  was  an  overwhelming  thought  ,  no  matter  how  curious  he  was  of  the  outside  world  ...

after  eleven’s  monster  encounter  and  gate  opening  situation  ,  four  felt  ...  anxious  .  he  didn’t  know  how  to  describe  it  other  than  feeling  sick  ,  but  not  actually  being  sick  .  so  he  never  tried  ,  knowing  it  would  sound  even  more  ridiculous  .  instead  ,  he  once  again  turned  to  drawing  ,  using  the  creative  outlet  as  a  way  to  express  himself  and  make  up  for  what  his  words  lacked  .  however  ,  it  only  got  worse  when  the  monster  escaped  and  lab  investigations  of  the  newly  quarantined  area  began  .

in  a  well-timed  space  after  the  chaos  ,  he  disobeyed  the  order  of  staying  away  and  found  himself  on  an  adventure  down  into  the  madness  .  just  to  see  what  was  causing  all  of  this  ,  you  know  ?  just  one  glance  .  it  was  almost  too  easy  to  slip  past  any  form  of  security  ,  but  it  was  a  rush  of  adrenaline  that  he  never  thought  he  could  enjoy  .

the  next  day  he  began  drawing  the  gate  ,  trying  to  imitate  the  look  of  it  with  the  few  supplies  he  had  around  .  it  wasn’t  exact  enough  to  sound  off  too  many  alarms  in  the  scientists  that  saw  ,  but  it  was  enough  to  question  if  eleven  wasn’t  the  only  one  who  could  contact  the  other  dimensional  creature  .  for  a  few  days  ,  they  forced  him  to  try  and  contact  the  monster  .  they  wanted  to  see  if  four  could  reach  out  to  it  telepathically  ,  to  try  and  lure  it  back  —  for  a  little  while  ,  it  seemed  like  there  was  potential  ,  but  in  the  end  whatever  close  calls  they  got  were  simply  just  that  .

alright  so  ..  i  would  say  ..  some  time  after  the  events  of  season  1  and  like  mid  season  2  ,  four  finally  escaped  and  fled  deep  into  the  woods  .  with  everything  going  on  and  with  him  already  being  silent  and  withdrawn  ,  it  wouldn’t  have  been  too  shocking  if  nobody  really  noticed  him  at  first  ??  like  he’s  pretty  hard  to  miss  ,  standing  at  6ft  and  looking  ...  like  he  very  obviously  shouldn’t  be  there  ,  but  .  you  know  ,  circumstantial  .

at  some  point  he  was  taking  shelter  in  someone’s  shed  ,  because  he  was  cold  but  he  was  also  still  cold  and  it  didn’t  exactly  help  much  but  it  was  better  than  being  totally  exposed  .  in  order  to  get  warmer  clothes  /  food  ,  though  ,  four  did  use  his  telepathy  in  order  to  make  people  want  to  give  him  stuff  .  or  to  get  out  of  some  type  of  trouble  ??  like  power  of  suggestion  and  things  like  that  ,  basically  .

fast  forward  to  currently  ,  he’s  still  basically  lurking  in  the  woods  by  himself  ,  but  he  did  find  this  nice  older  woman  that  let  him  stay  in  her  guest  room  occasionally  before  she  passed  .  now  he  just  ???  kinda  chills  around  it  ,  but  also  has  started  venturing  out  into  town  ...  only  to  be  ,  admittedly  ,  slightly  overwhelmed  by  the  new  starcourt  mall  .

so  personality  wise  :  he’s  really  ...  i  wouldn’t  say  shy  ,  but  rather  ..  secretive  and  hard  to  read  for  the  most  part  .  doesn’t  know  proper  ways  to  express  himself  .  also  doesn’t  mean  to  seem  cold  or  aloof  though  !!  like  genuinely  he’s  a  nice  kid  and  his  intentions  are  for  the  most  part  good  ,  but  he  definitely  goes  about  things  the  wrong  way  ?  i  would  describe  him  as  a  chaotic  good  ravenclaw  ,  at  best  .

his  astrology  is  taurus  sun  ,  pisces  moon  ,  sagittarius  rising  meaning  he’s  particularly  creative  and  likes  to  have  an  outlet  to  express  himself  .  he  doesn’t  like  rushing  into  things  ,  but  that  doesn’t  necessarily  stop  any  impulses  from  taking  over  here  and  there  .  the  trio  of  signs  are  as  complimentary  as  they  are  contradictory  ,  and  i  think  it  captures  him  as  a  person  so  far  :  curious  but  reserved  ,  withdrawn  but  wanting  to  experience  life  in  a  new  way  .

if  he’s  ever  exposed  to  d&d  ,  he  would  probably  be  a  rogue  .

at  the  lab  ,  some  of  the  scientists  probably  started  calling  him  “  monster  boy  ”  as  a  not  actually  funny  joke  ,  because  monsters  were  pretty  much  the  sole  content  of  his  drawings  .  idk  he’s  very  innately  into  horror  stuff  ,  which  is  almost  ironic  .

in  terms  of  sexuality  ,  he’s  technically  demi  biromantic  /  demi  bisexual  ,  meaning  he  needs  a  solid  bond  before  even  potentially  thinking  about  that  sort  of  ish  .  but  also  because  he  has  absolutely  no  experience  with  it  whatsoever  ,  he’s  painfully  oblivious  to  it  in  all  forms  and  has  no  idea  lmao

uh  ..  he  still  goes  by  four  ,  mostly  .  he  vaguely  remembered  his  birth  name  but  will  only  use  it  if  he  absolutely  has  to  ??  it’s  still  a  really  foreign  concept  to  him  that  he  technically  has  a  name  and  not  just  a  number  ?  he’s  sort  of  self  conscious  about  said  name  though  ,  because  people  who  do  know  it  have  mispronounced  it  at  some  point  or  another  ,  i’m  sure  .  so  either  he  goes  by  the  usual  four  ...  or  maybe  a  simple  ‘  ji  ’

somehow  has  gained  an  addiction  to  coffee  ,  and  he  (  obviously  )  also  doesn’t  know  what  his  favorite  ice  cream  flavor  is  ,  that’s  possibly  gonna  be  a  bit  of  fun  to  figure  out  ,  maybe  !

[bartsugsy]

Lo my darling,how are you feeling about everything that's going on with Robron?

Hey nonnie!

lmao I don’t know why I didn’t think this wouldn’t be ridiculously long and rambly but here we go, might as well get all of this out of the way at once:

At this point I feel like I could most accurately be described as a Certified Mess™. I’m not sad so much - and I’m not struggling at all to rationalise Robert’s actions, as much as I hate them, so that’s a plus, because I love Robert Sugden with all my withered heart and as much as I will call him every name under the sun and berate his fictional self, I don’t actually want to actively dislike his character. So yeah. I can understand how the plot took things there and it makes enough sense (not much but enough) that I can deal with it (for me at least - I know everyone’s mileages vary wildly on this) (But honestly I’ve got endless miles of meta whirling around my weird little brain)

(I’m not even going into it here honestly I don’t even know where to start, it’s like a big jumble of thoughts to help rationalise everything and connect it all together more, but I have no idea how to write about it just yet in a way that makes any decipherable sense and doesn’t devolve into me yelling about how I wish I were the one on spice so… that’s future plans)

So… the cheating itself I’m mostly over. Like, it sucks and I’d so so prefer it to have never happened, but it did so I’m sort of swiftly moving past it and focusing on the things I do enjoy, much as I have had to do so many times previously with this show lmao (and if I need to occasionally pretend that Robert did in fact simply pass out on the floor before anything happened then that is what I’ll do because denial is g r e a t)

I’m fascinated by the idea that this has essentially all happened because the boys are terrible at communicating, if only because that’s something we’ve all been banging on about for forever.

(If this leads to them learning how to communicate and/or therapy then… well I’ll still think it’s stupid but I’ll at least continue to be fascinated by that longer term, less overt storytelling aspect, because they always always get me with that shit)

I am and have always been mostly sad for the fandom. It’s not fun, seeing other people feel sad. The internet hasn’t developed a good way to physically hug people yet so… yeah, I’m sad about that. And I love you all and I’m sorry that everyone is or has been hurting because that honestly just sucks. It sucks.

(And as an aside, feel free to keep sending asks through if you’re feeling particularly sad or hurting. I can’t promise I’ll always be able to respond but I do always read them and I always send little mental good wishes along, so if you need to get things off your chest… just, yeah, I’m happy to read it, if you think it will help at all) (and I don’t know if it does, but the offer is there)

The structure and pacing and development of this storyline in conjunction with the prison sl also makes less than zero sense to me, so that’s annoying. I have no idea what their purpose is - I feel a little bit like we’re all in limbo, waiting to see how bad things get and what horrors they have in store, which sucks, but as always, it will pass somehow. You can’t stay in limbo forever. Even Dom Cobb got out of there eventually 😌

I also think that the show… or, certain functions around the show… as much as they absolutely do not need to in any way cater to our feelings where the plot is concerned, I think that in many ways, they took a series of missteps and sort of… have managed to not just take advantage of our investment but actually sort of abuse our investment in a way that ultimately has left both sides worse off?

I think they’ve created a lot of bad will and mistrust there, which I know was almost certainly not their intention and I’m really not trying to be overdramatic or sound like I’m throwing my toys out of the pram, because as I say, the show can do with the plot whatever it likes and I’m always happy to accept that but… the greater context of the way they did it is kind of gross and exploitative to me and I think that, although they’ll probably never quite understand where they went wrong or how their actions were, quite frankly, unfair to us, that’s something that needs to be said.

And ultimately, something that has caused a lot of damage. I know, I know it’s just people doing their jobs - it’s just a job that they may not have any emotional investment in, at the end of the day, and they don’t need to, they really don’t, regardless of the effects it has on us. It’s literally just some people’s way of paying the bills.But… yeah, I still think somewhere down the line they fucked up, in a lot of ways (and it’s sort of abjectly fascinating to watch play out on social media etc now and I really want to know what’s happening on the other side of things, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else)…. so there’s that.

All of that aside…

I do also ultimately think it will be ok. The upside of soaps is that literally nothing lasts forever (the downside of soaps is that that often includes consistent characterisation and happiness 😂) My faith is still in tact. I’m still of the belief that we’ll get to a place that’s not completely miserable at some point soonish… it’ll be an adventure! A vaguely miserable, ridiculous adventure that we’ll all wish we never had to take together 😌 like all the characters in LOST but with less death and just as little sense 😌

So, I’m going to spend the next few weeks lovingly yelling at Robert Sugden as if he were my real life adult son and not a fictional idiot. I’m going to make a lot of jokes about how stupid and directionless I think this all is. I’m going to blithely and shamelessly pretend like none of it is real a lot of the time. If there’s a baby plot I’m going to start yelling persistently about immaculate conception and the second or first coming of Jesus (depending on your religion). But… yeah, regardless of what else they have in store for us and our poor hearts, I still think that ultimately we’ll make our way back to something good. God knows what it will be. But I’m still stupidly invested. Also I’m pig-headedly stubborn .

So… yeah.

I’m resolutely not out of love with robron. I got all the feelings still. I’m absolutely sure that the powers that be have developed a lot of bad will with fandom and am feeling pretty out of love with them (and really unsure how to come back from it, although I’m not a particularly grudge-holding-y person, but… I think there needs to be some understanding that there’s a difference between raising online interaction and actively manipulating real life people’s feelings for a short term goal, which I don’t think they’ve really appreciate in any meaningful way) (probably because they’ve never been on our side of things).

In-show wise, I’m still both curious and completely, healthily terrified to see where things go, but this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. Plus, I am still actually in some respects sort of enjoying it (like, mostly hating it, but I love the characters and I love the relationships between them and I’m vaguely fascinated in watching them all sort of fall apart of how they’ll come back together if I’m honest) (I always like the messy aspects of things oh my god)

And I’m 100% stubbornly determined to help hold our little, breaking group together bc the alternative is too sad and I actually don’t think that’s what a lot of people want so… idk. We won’t let it. We’ll find a way - for everyone who wants to stick around to be able to stick around and not feel too sad and for anyone that understandably doesn’t want to stick around but possibly eventually wants to come back to come back to something good. I’m stupidly hopeful like that. The Suffering™ of all things will not defeat me.

If I’m going to have the spirit beaten out of me, it’s going to at least be by something that makes sense and more worthy of anything other than my withering derision and mocking 😌😌😌😌