#maybe I'll revise this for fall 2024

[chloedoesart]

The art prompt for the AHiT discord server last fall was Halloween costumes for the characters, so I decided to combine my two favourite grumpy, Scottish birds! I didn't actually finish this in time to submit it, so enjoy this work in progress instead.

(I also sketched out the three girls as Huey, Dewey, and Louie but never refined the sketch to a point where I was happy with it)

[walcutt]

tagged by @eruditetyro

let your spotify predict your 2024! shuffle your on repeat playlist, and the first twelve songs represent your 2024

i'm going to tag @kindahaunted, @althaea-bed, and... let's go with @shillelagh

january — heliotrope, runnner

"is this the conversation you want to have?"

a difficult one right off the bat. the new year never comes easy. this song is a real second-guessing of happy moments, the nagging thought that it's all wrong, and the difficult conversation.

february — lost coastlines, okkervil river

"we have lost our way, but nobody's gonna say it outright."

aimlessness, directionless, at a loss for what to do because i am at a loss of what i even am anymore. february will be a year since i kind of got my life back together. there's a restlessness to that.

march — bloodbath for birds, squalloscope

"pose for me, she said. come on closer to me, she said. pose for me, she said, this is all that i can get."

really fucking dire year so far. empty and manipulative love. motions for their own sake. motions because it's all we have. digging deeper in self harm. jesus christ.

april — cherry-coloured funk, cocteau twins

"you'll hang the hearts black and dull as the night"

a fugue and disclarity might be nice and needed after all this. with shimmering beauty & nostalgia.... a classic for the melting spring...

may — expert in a dying field, the beths

"and how do you know/it's over when you can't let go?"

evergreen song. i'm so fucking horrible at letting go. a relative died yesterday, and i'm certain it will continue to haunt me this year. among many other things.

june — mellon collie and the infinite sadness, the smashing pumpkins

instrumental.

lol. lmao, even.

july — laments of a mattress, hop along

"a song for the sad ones/who say they'll marry, they guess"

this is a song about a lot of things, but above all it's a song about cutting away yourself until you are nothing, for others. meeting expectations, burning both ends. i want to stop doing this. i hope this one doesn't come true, above all the others. i don't want to fall deeper into that self-destruction.

august — stockholm syndrome, yo la tengo

"i'm tired of aching/the summer's what you make it/but i'll believe what i want to believe"

it's nice that past all of this, there's a hope of love — a hope of connection — even past the cycles of nothing before. i do believe in it.

september — mildred pierce, sonic youth

"NOW SHE'S DEAD, MILDRED PIERCE"

there's not a ton to dig into on this one. it's a very desolate song. it's a song that's very pedal-to-the-gas for me these days. septembers never been an accelerationary month for me — maybe it will be now.

october — engine, neutral milk hotel

"for i am an engine, and i'm rolling on/through endless revisions to state what i mean"

this song is almost a lullaby, it's a real soother for me. soothing is something i need more of. i feel peace from two angles in this song. i find comfort in the idea of self-stability; in being the engine others can rely upon. in steadying myself in that way that i can be the rock that binds. i also want so badly to travel aimlessly by train. i could thrive being a train drifter, in the romantic sense. probably not the true literal sense.

regardless, i hope october brings some peace.

november — hi too loo rye, hop along

"oh hi, too loo rye! to think i had a light inside! when i try, too loo rye! to remember what i wanted to find!"

dreams, identity, the loss of self... much to consider. i've been going through stages of change in my life, and i feel quite stale in mine now. i'm not unhappy.... but i'm overdue for a reinventing, historically.

another line that kills me;

"they should keep me as the kind of warmth you can't get from a stove or hearth"

i often feel myself a novelty or accessory. nothing sustaining, just a frivolous thing; simply unable to be thrown away.

december — i fed my metal bird the wings of other metal birds, a silver mt. zion

"true love don't speak its own name"

to be honest, there's not a lot to scry from this song. an end of days, figuratively. which is fitting. for 4 years now there's been something wretched looming over my new years.