#its the same as when a complete stranger posts that my particular combination of minority signifiers is “valid”

[3liza]

posts like this are not bad or cringe or whatever but I'm so sick of them because if most disabled people followed this advice they would stop being able to pay bills, feed their children, buy groceries, show up for doctor or welfare appointments, bathe, or clean their houses. a lot of us can't do most or all of that stuff anyway. I'm not holding myself to an unrealistic standard, thats CBT bullshit. however, my landlord expects $1175 from me every thirty days for my half of this shared apartment, and that's a great deal in the majority of the American metropole

I have to assume all these posts are either made by people who are too young to have jobs, aren't very disabled, or are disability fandom influencers who make money when people click on hopeful nonsense

[blubberquark]

Teaching to RTFM

I think RTFM has its place. I know I’m not in the minority with this view, but it’s not exactly polite to talk about it. We have all started out on the other side of RTFM at some point, clueless and helpless, not knowing where to begin.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t told to RTFM that much, because I learned to program from books when I was 12, and I wished I could ask somebody for guidance. My father still knew BASIC from the late 70s and early 80s, and my teachers knew enough PASCAL to pass their own exams and then teach children how to use Microsoft Excel. There was nobody to turn to.

When I started learning Java from a book, I was very confused, and I learned many bad habits, idiosyncrasies of the book’s author that I stuck with because I didn’t understand what they meant. Then I bought a bigger, heavier book about Java, and I slowly learned to program. I learned programming in general and Java in particular at the same time. One textbook explained what classes in Java do, but not why you would use them, and the other textbook vacillated between treating OOP as a scary newfangled concept nobody understands but everybody has to use because of Java, and something you have to be familiar with already because the book assumed you already knew C, C++, BASIC and smalltalk.

I read the manual and I didn’t understand. What finally got me to understand OOP was ironically learning and reading code in Python. Unlike in Java and smalltalk, OOP in Python is optional. Although everything in Python is an object, the common Pythonic programming style is procedural, with OOP constructs used sparingly when they make sense. This finally let me understand what OOP is good for. No amount of contrived examples like “class PickUpTruck extends Car { ... }“ helped me understand OOP in Java.

The same thing can happen with classes, module systems, macros, build systems, version control systems, bug trackers, databases, and visual modelling languages like UML and FMC. They are all paradigms or technologies to manage complexity, and if I give a student a toy teaching example of a SQL database, multi-module program, or UML diagram, then the student will be confused rather than enlightened. If the complexity is missing from the example, then the benefit of using complexity-mitigating technology is not obvious.

That even goes for comments! What good are comments in a textbook example, with explanatory text already left and right of the code listing?

If I had a teacher who could explain OOP to me, things would have been so much easier. Eventually, I managed to learn what I needed to learn. Some things are much, much harder to learn if you can’t ask a teacher multiple clarificatory question in quick succession. It would be even better if your teacher asked you a couple of questions to drill down on which part you didn’t understand.

Nowadays, I see many questions on Discord, IRC, and forums from people who are just starting out learning to program. It’s a vast difference between learning Unity3D when you are already a programmer who shipped software in C++ and wrote games in Java, and learning programming, C#, game design, level design, shaders, 3D modelling, and the Unity3D Engine in one go.

If somebody asks a confused question online, the first order of business is to establish whether they are an expert or a confused beginner. That can sound confusing and condescending, but I often fear if I give a straight answer to a confused question, I do more harm than good.

When somebody asks “How do I iterate over the pixels in a pygame surface?“, I can give the straight answer, or three advanced answers with different performance characteristics. You probably want to use numPy and cache the results during level loading. Maybe you can also use numPy if it’s only an occasional thing, and you can stomach the dozens of megabytes of native code dependencies. You probably want to use OpenGL with a GLSL fragment shader if you do the thing every frame. If perchance you want to do palette-swaps only, then you can use the pygame palette handing functions rather than iterating over pixels and doing a dict look-up each time. Iterating over all the pixels in a pygame surface is slow. You can probably get away with it on a 16x16 sprite, but not on a 1920x1080 screenshot.

That’s not even the worst of it! I see confused questions by people who think they found a bug in a library/framework/engine, but actually they just don’t understand their own code, or they don’t understand the programming language. I see confused questions by people who don’t know what problem they are actually encountering, who don’t know what to Google.

These people don’t need to be told to RTFM. Either they already read the manual, but they don’t understand it, or they don’t even know which manual, or what to look for. They can’t be told to RTFM, but they can’t be given straight answers either. The best thing you can do is to ask “You’re new to this, aren’t you?“ and point them to a more basic tutorial. Or, if your time is worthless, you can decide to tutor them one-on-one over the Internet.

All these problems can combine into the worst possible scenario: Somebody asks on StackOverflow/IRC/the mailing list/Slack/Discord, because their teacher is not available, or told them to learn to RTFM and figure it out independently. These people can be high school students too intimidated by their teachers to ask questions, university students who can’t be bothered to attend lectures or wait for office hours, or junior programmers who are trying to impress their boss.

Figuring things out is a useful skill to have, but it’s not something you should rely on in a high school class. If you’re a teacher, don’t punish students for asking questions! And don’t expect students to bother strangers on the Internet to do your job for you. The best thing you can do to get students to RTFM is to answer their questions when they get stuck, so they get a good idea of what to look for, which terms to search for, what to ask on IRC.

If you want to teach your pupils to RTFM, you should at least follow up with them and point them in the right direction in case they get stuck trying to look up the answer, or if they don’t understand the text in the manual. Of course you can assign reading, but for some reason, some of your pupils will take this to mean that you refuse to explain the topic, so the only recourse is to ask strangers online.

And then the student comes back next week and asks even more confused questions, now that the next assignment is due, impossible to complete without having understood last week’s topic.

Around a third of confused newbie questions I see are from students who would rather not ask their teachers, not even those who post whole homework assignments.

Some people want us to stop saying RTFM online, ever. They also want us to stop saying “You’re new to this, aren’t you?“ or “Please take a step back and think about what you are trying to accomplish with this“. They all are too condescending. I’m not just trying to shift the blame away from open source projects and programmer online communities. Confused online questions sometimes have offline causes. These causes cannot be hyperlinked, retroactively screenshotted, and posted to twitter.

For all the talk of rudeness online, many students would rather ask questions here than at school. Maybe the problem lies in the classroom.

[aelaer]

Tagged: All about me and fanfic

Thank you for tagging me @dragonnan! My fan fic history is a long one... and in three fandoms. Which is why most of this will be under a cut for anyone who has a lot of time to waste. And is morbidly curious. But there’s some (okay, dozens) of fanfic recs for three fandoms under there too, sooooo.

Tagging at the top so you don’t have to read my verbose-ness if you don’t want to: @amethyst-noir @cairistiona7 @mdcbd @phierie if you’re interested in giving it a shot :)

1. At what age did you start writing fanfiction?

13. You can still find my earliest works online, too; I kept up anything that wasn't completely deplorable (though fanfiction.net deleted my stupidly popular, several hundred reviews of a story I did in 2004 because it was script format. The bastards xD Popular with all the little kids).

2. Who is your favorite author?

Lmaooooo what a question. Okay so for three fandoms. The big thing that’s common between all my favorite authors is that romance is not a primary genre with any of these writers. So if you like gen (of all genres) you’ve come to the right post.

If anyone here is a LOTR book fan (especially Aragorn), let me direct you to storiesofarda.com. It’s an old site, not even mobile friendly. Anyway, go read the works of Cairistiona and Meckinock. If you're more into hobbits and anything fluffy, go read Shirebound. That I remember their names since I was last active in fanfic in LOTR in 2011 speaks to their quality. I've had the honor of meeting Shirebound several times in real life as well, this last time in New York back in April after several years apart (though I'd like to meet Cair one day for sure, as well). I had a lot of favorites years ago but I’d need to reread the old stuff to see what still lives up to my expectations.

Scanning my favorites in Sherlock, Jolie Black , CaffeineKitty, and hollyesque on AO3. Stillwaters1, chappysmom, Radon65, and Morgan Stuart from fanfiction.net. But I have a couple favorite stories from authors who only wrote a couple fics (below).

Now the MCU (okay basically Doctor Strange, let’s be honest), on AO3: Grim Revolution and merrywil (the latter is pretty new and needs a hell lot more attention, she is a great writer). I love those long, introspective character one shots. There's not a lot of authors who don't focus on romance in the MCU with Stephen as a main character -- indeed, it’s partially nonexistent -- so shorter list. ElenaCee wrote some great stories just after the first film but has sadly moved onto other fandoms.

Dragonnan on AO3 is currently my favourite whump writer. Two of my fandoms and lots of my favorite tropes. I feel spoiled. My favorite romance-is-their-primary-genre writer is amethyst-noir for her characterization of Stephen combined with the oh-so-fun (for us) scenarios.

3. Favorite type of scene to write?

I can usually tickle myself quite a bit when I get some really great situational comedy into a story. I can never be fully an angst/whump writer because I adore comedy. So yeah, situational comedy for sure.

4. What is your favorite fanfic?

Stop asking me these questions ahhh. Okay so I'll be mentioning fanfics not by any of the authors listed above (which are in my most favorite stories too but, well, their works are all favorites anyway. Just look at all their works in said fandom for more favorites if you’re lacking reading material and have similar tastes. And once you’re done reading all the works by those authors, come back here for more. Seriously, read the authors above).

I listed these fics in alphabetical order because that seemed most fair.

LOTR (Most are book-verse. I need to reread a lot of these. Most of these authors have several works for the fandom, though I think each of these particular stories have Aragorn as a primary character):

A Proper Course of Action by GadFlyGirl (absolutely hilarious one-shot after Helm’s Deep about ‘the Denethor situation’)

Across the Years by MistyC (a very creative and well-written story that spins an old cliche in a much more interesting way)

Butterbur and the King by Eledhwen (fantastic character one-shot from one of my favorite minor characters)

Conversations with the King by athelas63 (great characterizations, good healing scenes)

Conversion by Pentangle-linnon (for everyone who says that first person can’t be done in fanfic - read this one-shot, then tell me what you think now. A work of pure brilliance)

Crossroads of Light and Shadow by Mirach (this one I recommend simply for the creativity alone; the art she was able to execute with the text in flipping fanfiction.net is really mind-boggling. Very creative!)

Doomed to Live by fliewatuet (it was never completed, but it’s so freaking good that I am putting it here anyway)

For Every Evil by Mirrordance (fantastic modern incarnation AU that spun out into a series)

Greet the Dawn by Neoinean (a great, very long long-shot with two characters meeting and it’s just a great combination of humor and angst. More great characterization)

Helping Strangers by Imaginigma (fantastic one-shot, really interesting OCs, a wonderful scenario)

In Shadow Realm by Legolass Q (original concept, well-developed characters, engaging plot, truly magnificent)

Light Fingers by Aearwen22 (I think this is the only fic here that doesn’t star Aragorn- he’s a pretty minor character. Brilliant brilliant characterizations of the OCs and a look of a part of society often ignored in LOTR fan fic)

Pale-Faced Tark by Carafinwe (everything by this author is brilliant, but the visceral imagery she managed to capture in two short chapters here still blows my mind)

The Patient by Scribe (another fantastic modern incarnation AU that spun out into a series)

Ransom by MP brennan (man I just continue to see how much the LOTR fandom completely spoiled me with all of these brilliant, plotty fics. Another original concept with brilliant OCs and fantastic execution)

Shattered Stones by MCat711 (a very creepy, original, well-executed one shot that keeps you guessing the whole way through)

The Weight of Power by Nefhiriel (does it follow canon as established by the Appendices? No. Do I care? No. The story’s absolutely fantastic and makes those small discrepancies mean nothing. This was also the first story I ever drew fan art for. I then made something for Shirebound a year later, then didn’t make anything again until that Ebony Maw piece I posted a bit back)

With Hope and Without Hope by docmon (AU scenario in that the Three Hunters are captured while trying to rescue the Hobbits. Very well-thought out and compelling plot, fantastic characterizations all around)

Sherlock:

Annie’s Song by Berouge (One of the only romantic-leaning fics listed here [Sherlolly], but that is due to its excellent characterization and execution. Creative one-shot.)

The Case of the Missing Bus Ticket by Unsentimentalf (I think I burst a rib laughing to this story. Long one-shot. Situational humor at its finest)

Constantly by thesignofserbia (great one shot concerning Serbia)

Drowning by Dayja (I like a lot of her stuff. Angsty.)  

Firestorm by Dustbunny13 (This is... beyond words. So gorgeous. I adored it from beginning to end. Have read a few times. Sometimes accept it as season 3 alternate canon, it’s just fantastic)

Fortune and Bust by ThessalyMc (a wonderful gap-filler fic, very similar to a lot of my favorite authors listed above in quality and type of content)

The Green Blade by verityburns (excellent case fic)

The Holiday by Scriblit (both whumpy angst and humor and case fic? Yeeeessss. Another I’ve read several times.)

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus by Caitlin Fairchild (another Serbia fic? Yes predictable of me)

London Orbital (another story, very long one-shot, where I burst a rib laughing)

Rigging screws, size 1 3/8 inch, galvanised by AJHall (another excellent case fic)

World Enough, and Time by StoneWingedAngel (an excellent and creative execution of a trope that you'll realize by the time you get to day three)

Doctor Strange (unless stated otherwise, they’re all one-shots. Need more multi-chapter fics... or just gen Stephen content in general):

The Architect by mudgems (a great what-if with Stephen, Loki, and the Time Stone)

Born of the Same Impulse by GwendolynStacy (WIP multi-chapter. Time stone shenanigans send Stephen and Tony back to just before Ultron and a few months after the car accident, but before Kamar-Taj [the accident happens in 2015 rather than 2016 for this to work. It’s brilliant])

Citizen Erased by Imagined (WIP multi-chapter. One of the only romance-is-a-major-genre story [ironstrange] on the list, but the plot concept is incredibly unique, the mystery is being unraveled so wonderfully well, and the collection of characters is really fantastic and in-character.)

The End of Infinity by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls (WIP multi-chapter. It’s canon compliant, only Stephen does a fantastic trick after canon and snatches Loki from the claws of death to go back to 2016 and fix everything. Peter, Tony also co-star. I am very much looking forward to where this goes)

Extracurricular Activities by EmptyHead (I am cheating here and linking a series. But it’s so damn creative, and while Stephen plays a big role, he’s definitely not the starring character. Synopsis is that MJ learns the mystic arts. It’s really brilliant!)

Geniuses by decotex (Stephen Strange's and Tony Stark's backstories, published before IW came out)

Hearth Sorcery by keshwyn (Another cheat here with a series of 5 one-shots, but this is too excellent and undervalued not to link. Excellent OC and world-building, highly recommend)

Holiday Magic by KarToon12 (Stephen plays Santa Claus for sick kids. It's adorable)

i hope you hold the mirror up (to show me what i chose) by CallicoKitten (Stephen and Tony being assholes to one another, published way before IW. I love it)

Like an Old Coat by ValmureEld (Could definitely see this as a follow up scene to the events in the Doctor Strange film. Great character interaction sequence)

Magic In Our Veins by Luna_Heart (the lack of Loki and Stephen interaction stories is criminal. Absolutely criminal. I want more!)

The Night’s First Watch by fathomfive (omg this is so good. So so so good. Excellent character study, I can’t recommend it enough)

of coffee and (questionable) first impressions by Phierie (Ooohh I love this alternate first meeting lots. Beat up on monsters and a coffee break after the work. Great stuff)

Project Code 131793 by StrangeMischief (Absolutely haunting and incredibly well-executed AU. I would adore to see more in this universe, it is so interesting)

Replay by INMH (the horror of Dormammu and coping with it)

You’ve Got Mail by Jadesfire (it’s about the mail situation with the Sanctum. What is not to love about that concept)

5. What tags do you avoid like the plague?

A/B/O, mpreg, not Mary friendly (for Sherlock), not Team Cap friendly, anti-Steve, anti-Wanda (or similar). Any of that anti-character bullshit, but in the MCU those are the two I see the most (and so probably make me rage the most. I once saw anti-T’Challa for instance and that just confused me more than anything). A bit of a rant in the next two paragraphs (I have Strong Feelings on this topic).

I don't tolerate the anti-character crowd. I really don't. Disliking a character is one thing and completely normal (I have my own list), but expanding time and energy to write just how much this character sucks is mind-boggling (and tends to make for really shitty fanfic. So you create a strawman villain of the character you hate for your favorite character to go against? Good job, you’ve made your favorite character appear entirely too stupid to deal with a well-developed character in conflict, and have made your favorite character 2D. Have a gold star). Your energy can be used elsewhere that isn't focused on hate. If you hate the character but aren’t creative enough to present them as anything but a strawman in your writing, don’t bother. Create an OC for your antagonist instead. Stop making canon characters so ridiculously OOC.

The real world is too filled with negativity to have it as part of a major focus in my fandom experience. It actually really, really bothers me that I cannot save a filter that automatically excludes all those anti tags as they haven’t been canonicalized on AO3. What perhaps bothers me even more is the number of kudos those hate-filled fics with incredibly OOC characters receive. The hypocrisy in this crowd is just astounding when you start pointing out the flaws in their favorite characters, too (FYI: All well-developed characters have flaws. I love Stephen Strange for his flaws. Before Stephen made his debut, Tony Stark was my favorite for similar reasons. It makes them INTERESTING).

Anyway, rant over.

6. What AU do you wish to write but feel like you won’t manage?

If I really really really want to write something, I'll write it. That said, there are things that I don't plan to write that I would adore reading (like that unfinished Stephen travels to the HP universe in Harry's fifth year fic ahhhhh I want that it would have made the 5th year so much better. Maybe if I bribe the original writer with fan art... wardmason you’re killing me).

7. Do you outline, or write as you go?

Depends. The outlines only tend to come into play for long stories with several scenes, and writing tends to happen first before outlining.

8. What has been your favorite story to write so far? Why?

Such hard questions! Uhhh I had great fun writing in my youth but I can barely remember it. Within this last year, uh... can I just say all of them? I've written about 100k in 6 months, I'm clearly enjoying myself here. I’ve had vibrant moments of delight in writing or planning several of them.

9. Do you prefer to write one-shots or multi-chapters? Why?

Both. Just depends on the story I want to tell and how long that story is saying it should be. I like posting a variety too; have one-shots coming out while I am working on the longer stories in the background.

10. What is your favorite kind of comment?

Oh those deep analytical ones that clearly took time to write. They're so lovely and really make my day. Every fanfic writer knows exactly what type of comment I am talking about.

11. Why did you start writing fanfiction? Why are you still writing?

I started because I had just seen the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and I really liked the characters (before the sequels ruined them in various capacities) and I thought, "I should put them in Middle-earth!" 45 chapters and 7 years later that damn fic got completed (after dozens and dozens of rewrites as my writing abilities improved over the years).

Now, it's because I really enjoy writing and I like playing in copyrighted playgrounds with characters and worlds I love. Yeah, I could write an original novel, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

[jezfletcher]

1000 Albums, 2019: The Top Ten

10. Holly Herndon - PROTO (AI Electronica)

A throughly fascinating outing this one, from experimental electronic producer Holly Herndon, made in collaboration with an AI of her own devising. The AI is trained on live vocal and choral samples (some training, in fact, is included in the album), and can generate new examples of the same in response to stimuli in the music. Herndon layers elements on top of this, occasionally reaching a kind of transcendent operatic height. Excitingly, Herndon is also coming to Sydney Festival in January, and I’m fascinated to see how this pans out live. Standout Track: Eternal.

9. Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride (indie pop)

For a long time, when I was considering what could be my top album of the year, the one that stuck in my mind was this one. It had an extremely strong lead single in Harmony Hall, and multiple further tracks that I really strongly got into, the likes of Stranger and This Life, and to a lesser extent Sunflower. But I think what I’d forgotten until I started doing full album relistens, was that this is a very long album, and it wavers a lot in style and quality—and much of it didn’t land as much as I wanted it to. It’s not that it doesn’t have those glorious highs (because it does), but because albums ahead of it in this list have a level of consistency that ensure that the whole thing is a joy to listen to. Meanwhile, I’m very happy to put these 3 or 4 tracks from Vampire Weekend on a permanent loop, but it’s not enough to shoot the album into the upper echelons of the list. Standout Track: Harmony Hall.

8. Aurora - A Different Kind of Human (Step II) (dreampop)

Sam’s #1 track of 2016 was from Aurora, and as a result, we’ve collected Aurora tracks and albums as they’ve come out. But 2019 is finally the breakthrough for me when listening to her music—we had at least two lead singles before the album was released, which can often mean that the rest of the album feels like filler. But this maintained its kind of ethereal electropop throughout, combining haunting vocal hooks with swells and dips of synths in continuously compelling ways. A fine album: perhaps not one I was expecting to have this high at the start of the year. But then again, it is the year that dreampop really starts clicking for me. Standout Track: The River.

7. Bang Bang Romeo - A Heartbreaker’s Guide to the Galaxy (blues rock)

Some really solid stuff here. This is full-throated bluesy rock, sold by the powerful vocals of front-woman Anastasia Walker, and backed by a full band complete with horn section. It has moments of shuddering stadium rock, but can dial it back to sultry crooning in an instant. This was honestly a pretty late entry in the year, and often albums like this don’t have the time to percolate in my mind enough to really get them high on this list. So it’s a testament to the quality of Bang Bang Romeo that we see them up in the top ten. Standout Track: Cemetery.

6. Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell (folk pop)

If 2019 was the year I got into dreampop, there’s a reason why it’s also the year I really started appreciating Lana Del Rey. The other reason Normal Fucking Rockwell sees itself so high on this list is because it’s honestly fucking great. It swirls between atmospheric dreampop and a more kind of straight soft pop rock, with elements of psychedelia always in the mix. Del Rey’s vocals are always somewhat hypnotic, but here she layers a more complex lyrical sense to them. It feels as though this is a step up at just the time when I’m most receptive to it, and that makes for a high placing for an artist I wasn’t super enthusiastic about before this year. Standout Track: Venice Bitch.

5. Joseph - Good Luck, Kid (indie folk pop)

Into the top 5 we plunge, and first up is this excellent collection of music from the trio of Portland sisters, Joseph. It’s a thrilling kind of folk tunefulness, put atop a pop rock basis that drives it forward. The fusion is never complicated, and the sweet folk sounds manage to persist in tracks like Revolving Door, while they otherwise sit comfortably above a stronger rock basis in tracks like Fighter and Good Luck, Kid. It’s a smart and attractive combination. I have loads of track on this album that I want to single out in isolation, but the fact is that listening to the whole album itself is a different kind of trip, and it’s the coherence and consistency of the whole collection which ensures this is so high. Standout track: Revolving Door.

4. Sleepwalkers - Ages (indie pop rock)

I’ll be honest with you, I was never at all expecting this to be as high as this on my list—my favourite track from the album, American Nights, is a good bit of pop rock that reminds me a bit of the 90s throwback sound of Cornershop and Supergrass, but it’s not one of the best tracks of the year for me. But the fact is that there are so many tracks here that are of that calibre. If there’s an award for consistency of an album, it has to go for this one, which is sustained in sunny poppy rock throughout, and constantly manages to find a hook to make each song memorable. Other standout tracks include I Can’t Wait, Fault Is Me, Never Enough and Attention. In the end, it’s almost a tidal wave of goodness from this album that makes its place this high inevitable. Standout Track: American Nights.

3. Sundara Karma - Ufilas' Alphabet (art pop)

Another album which overwhelms me with consistency is this adventure from Sundara Karma. There’s a really strong vibe of both later Bowie and the shuffling uncool coolness of David Byrne in this. It’s almost a kind of boundary pushing psychedelic rock at times, only performed with a dance beat and synths, or a deep groove that keeps it moving. But at the same time, it chooses very strongly to tie itself to some pop tropes which make it accessible, and almost anthemic at times. This is another album which was definitely in the conversation about end of the year lists, but which I didn’t realise deserved to be so high until I did relistening at the end of the year. This is genuinely excellent stuff, and a worth 3rd place of the year. Standout Track: Little Smart Houses.

2. Walk Off The Earth - Here We Go! (indie pop)

You may remember Walk Off The Earth for their cover of Somebody That I Used To Know which they performed with four members all playing the same guitar. But step away from the gimmick and the viral videos, and their originals (of which this album is filled full) are joyous little slices of pop. They have a quirkiness with the samples which keeps a sense of humour, and otherwise they have the kind of sunny music that makes even a day trapped in Sydney smoke haze feel like a bright day on a tropical island. Again, this is an album with a huge hit rate. Aside from my Standout Track, I’d also call out Addicted, Here We Go (Overtime), I’ll Be There, and Co-Star, honestly all of which could have been the top track on another album. Most of all, this is the kind of music that I’ve loved so much in the past. It reminds me of previous efforts from MisterWives, Moon Taxi and Jukebox The Ghost. It’s the kind of music which is designed for me. At least that’s the way it feels. Standout Track: Under a Tree.

1. ViVii - ViVii (dreampop)

What would 2019, the Year of Dreampop, be without a dreampop album at the top of the pile. During relistening, I was just swimming in this ethereal music and it just felt right. I wasn’t sure where the top of the list was going to land, but this one just felt right. In some years of the music project, it’s been fairly clear from early on what was going to be my best album of the year (2018 is the obvious example, where The Go! Team felt almost unassailable for most of the year), but this is more a decision like 2016, when I just had an emotional connection with The Space Between from Jamie Smith’s Mabon. I have that same connection here with ViVii. This exemplifies the things I’ve most come to love about dreampop—the harmonic shifts that are both unexpected and yet somehow perfect, the clear, plaintive lyrics which fit so well with the lush backing without getting breathy and whiney. But there are just so many moments in this that send a tingle up my spine, like the minor-to-major modulation in the second lines of the chorus of Savant, the off-kilter beat in the opening to Siv (You And I), which clicks into place once the baseline appears, or the bell-like guitar of Suckerpunch which morphs into a mournful solo section, even as it modulates into places you don’t quite expect. I love this album all up, and it’s the one that I really just want to most embrace and champion from 2019. Shockingly, in the week this was released, this actually only got my Runner Up Award, which was clearly a huge mistake. In my defence, the week we listened to this I had a bad bout of the flu, which can be the only rational explanation for why I didn’t see the transcendence of this album on the first pass. Luckily I rectified it in the end. Standout track: Suckerpunch.

Well, that’s it for albums. Tomorrow, I’ll post a rundown on my top tracks of the year (I have a lot of these). I’ll do those without commentary—it’s more for record keeping purposes that I do it, and so that Sam and I can compare placings of crossover songs. It’s also an opportunity for me to share a bit more of the wider music I’ve enjoyed this year, even when particular albums didn’t percolate to the top.