#my favourite Struggler

[styllwaters]

This has been sitting in my drafts for long enough and I haven't properly introduced her so here's my girl Lanh. Second protagonist of Vivere 44 (after Vreaz) and second generation Posthuman, first gens like Kota were originally from Earth but Lanh was born on Hanidias. As a result she's heavily entrenched in Arrow culture and is an enthusiastic fan of Arrow skyracing.

She struggles to keep up with her Posthuman peers due to a damaged node disorder that prevents her from being able to split her consciousness multiple ways. She is doing her best though

[b0tsbby]

“Trigun 1998”❌

“Meryl surviving long enough to get a promotion”✅

[which-hospital]

every friend group got the paramedic, the paramedic, the paramedic, the paramedic, the paramedic, the paramedic, the paramedic, the para

[trashbatistrash]

,

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

97 Poets of Revachol pics!

HERE THEY ARE, courtesy of the event's official photographer, Zuzana Šubrtová. The Elysium-based LARP took place in two runs in Terezín, Czech Republic, in the latter half of September. These are from the second run!

I can't possibly describe what it was like to inhabit the rundown tenement of La Cage with more than a hundred other players, bringing to life a whole slice of society: immigrants, barflies, petanque players, sewer people, Union gang members, Wild Pines mercs, disco people, sewer people, looters, street artists, an inevitable mass of fascists, anarchists, communards (or so I'm told), communards (proper), communards (it's complicated), councilmembers, hustlers, taxidermy enthusiasts, the also-inevitable mass of pale-fried strugglers, journalists, Moralintern creeps, RCM chucklefucks, and so on and so forth. The old military hospital burst to life with small human moments and grand revelations happening in every corner at all time, as the gears of history moved toward our inevitable trial run of Le Retour.

We really had it all. Politics, drugs, creeping mold, more drugs, unseen voices steering us toward our best and worst natures, a metaphysical rave, entroponetic anomalies, precognition (scripted), precognition (just kind of happened?? Several times over?), suzerainist coffin deliveries, sweatshop politics, old reckonings, radiant sacrifices (accidental-ish), three-way divorces (one-upping one HDB), strikes and strike-breakers, political dance-offs and political orgies, and did I mention the drugs, under the greatness of history and the pale.

Thanks to the organizers for the colossal effort they pulled off like it was nbd, and to all my fellow dwellers of La Cage.

A few favourites:

First off, this was basically the entirety of my game:

...with a central heartrending tension between that abandon, that 'something beautiful is going to happen', and my character's earthly loves, the family she loved so much. It was really really fascinating and emotionally moving to get to play out that central conundrum in full (and go die on the barricades for an independent Revachol following the push of History) (and also of Franconegro pulling my strings like a marionette in a chilling scene) (but mostly History)

Case in point: me in the back, the Unseen voice/spirit/skill "Doomsayer" to the left, dear husband Tai in the middle. Sorry Tai!

Moralintern mission

Sweatshop workers strike

Both sides of the barricades, right as the game ended (this is not a spoiler, it said up front on the website that that's where the story would end): independentists (feat. His Fuckery Franconegro with the black wings in the background, but also the Unseen of if it sucks hit da bricks, the street martyr and idk who else) and globalists (Dolores Dei, Doomsayer et al)

speaking of those two - here's them in full rave regalia. I love that two of the collective skills of this place are flat-out "Dolores Dei" and "Franconegro", it's so fitting. Can't have current society without them, so here they are, as a molecular part of it.

RCM peeps predictably being serious, professional individuals

Designer drug guy talking to Corrosion who's kind of the local version of Electrochemistry. I'm sure this was a completely hinged conversation that reached sensible conclusions

Wild Pines mercs +1

Disco downtime. The set design for The Bearded Vulture club and The Second Club was out of this world. I hope my own pics can convey some of it.

sweatshop power dynamics (there were accidents, Union leverage, strikes, corruption... you'd think there would be barely time for anything else to go on AND YET)

possibly my fave pic of the whole thing (go Doomsayer!!!). we had specific graffitable areas on the wall and made VERY good use of them. Well, everyone else. My character wasn't much of a graffiti artist, her greatest contribution was turning "Revachol for revacholians" into "Revachol for mold"...

LARP^2

fascist campaigning at the Democracy Picnic

Petanque club...

...actually playing petanque? I never saw them ingame, I was starting to wonder if it wasn't a front for something else

Pictured - no scheming, plotting or quadruple-crossing here as you can clearly see by "Kras Knezhinisky"'s super normal demeanour and unassuming name, which I can totally believe was on his legit birth certificate)

I mention Kras because here's the theatrical taxidermy show with him in the middle narrating the adventures of his antifascist ferret Kommissar Kunixet. Nice pic, I take the shot. Five seconds later, superstar Frittte clerk Jamie Delaney joins in, and what can I do, NOT have Jamie in a shot? Absolutely not, so I take the same exact shot with Jamie in it as well.

And by sheer twist of technology (and of course the pale, and of course vile censorship in defiance of the Romangorod convention)... Kras Knezhinsky of all people gets kommissar-no-kommissar'd. "Kras, the pale is erasing you from our memories, from images," I warn him, showing him the two pictures. One hour later, he gets taken behind the waste disposal facility and shot.

Hm.

(LARP's haunted. These things KEPT HAPPENING. In the first run, that version of my character went "YOU MURDERER" at the specific merc who'd turn out to be connected with her background, a couple of hours before getting that reveal in-game. What's Elysium without some good old-fashioned precognition after all!)

Poor Flowerseller (red dress here) was kind of my Empathy - many valiant attemps were made, however. Uphill struggle.

HARDCORE anodic club leader Konrad Nilsen doing something not so hardcore here, idk what was going on exactly but then again I never even noticed we had a morgue and I had a plot right next room, so what do I know. I know that the end is near. That much for sure. And that the resolution of history's contradictions goes through the pale. But corpses? Nah.

||||||| 😎

[starocide]

@muslimfish I'm glad you asked! Introducing the latest recurring triteragonist in this long-running series: a chronically employed man by the name of The Struggler with no will left to live. Here's an official image of him almost falling into a lava-filled ravine.

I fear I may or may not have acquired my first ever properly employed "blorbo".

[gayson-voorhees]

VIP (Very Important Prefect) collection

I’ve drawn more in the past few months than I did the entirety of last year.

These are in order and it's really funny to me to look at them and be like hey where did that artstyle come from??? this does not matter to any of you bc I never post art here so You can't tell. but this is nothing like the way I drew pre getting big into twst. I also used to struggle really heavily with drawing little things for fun?? Stuff akin to the blazing jewel thing, like I had to draw with the intention of drawing an entire thing or when I did do little stuff it was because I was really frustrated and couldn’t draw anything at all and had to try and force something out or I’d go insane. But now I’m skipping through a field of flowers under a rainbow. Art has become a real yippee activity. AND ITS ALL THAT STUPID CROW’S FAULT. Like yeh yeh I guess the way to get better at art really is to go insane about the character. Real tried and tested method. But I think this is the first time I’ve for real gotten better. My character interactions are better, their interactions with the world in general are better, my forms have more weight, I’m so much faster than I was before, I’m enjoying myself, I am simply no longer the struggler!!

I don't like the way my playful land one turned out and you can tell (Well I can tell) I was having problems with the face n stuff but it's important to me and I think that one shows more than anything else how my art changed. Very rapidly mind you. Also I like the outfit so I couldn’t just nooooot post it. My mental illness that says I must draw an outfit for every event also says i must post it actually. I have a couple more playful land/fellow stuff and HONESTLY I just need to redraw it all🧍‍♂️ I was struggling really bad with my art pre-twst and the first couple months of playing before the ability to draw again hit me like a train and so I look at the couple things I did manage to force my hands to comply with and I’m just clenching my fist bc I know I can do better.

The last one is the only for real wip on here and it’s also the one I’ve struggled the most with recently. Which is kinda antithetical to everything I’ve said about yay yippee art, but I tried to draw it and it pissed me off so bad I had to put it in the hell folder (the folder where I put things I’m so unhappy with I know they’re a dead end and I can’t look at them anymore but they’re also important to understand what I’ve done wrong so I can’t delete them) which is the first hell folder use this year! I was like “this isn’t working. what if I just made it into this instead” and then it looked bad and I was unhappy with it and it’s just not what I wanted, but thats because I had fallen into my old ways of not using my lines and simple shapes properly and getting really frustrated while drawing and trying to force it. I went back the next day new canvas and redid it from scratch perfectly first try and it’s perhaps my most favourite thing I’ve ever drawn. And I will finish it. Trust🫡 There’s a first time for everything!!!! It’s too nice and silly and cute to just leave collecting dust. Maybe I’ll even colour it oooooo

Ok What else do I have in my files.. I’ve got a second Crowley wip that I didn’t want to post bc I’ve not drawn clothes yet and it looks.hm. without them. but I’m putting off finishing it bc drawing them is going to drive me insane- and I’m having some pose problems with an arm in it and you know I’m gonna finish it at some point but I need to sit on it for a bit. BUT. it’s cute. so here’s the last screenshot if took of it.

[feketeribizli]

me and my sisters ability to choose absolute strugglers for our favourite driver should be studied

[mamawasatesttube]

🎨🧩🦋

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

i have to pick one (1) favorite?????? just one????? just one?!?!?! ...ok well. i couldnt pick just one i narrowed it down to three but i am the struggler. anyways i Adore this pic of kon in a pretty dress by nik for my birthday last year (it has been my lock screen since last year). he is so prettyyyyy and also so gender and yaaayyyy

also, i am never ever ever ever getting over beckett's sotm ch5 comic with kon & krypto over the pacific at night. holy mother of god. it is so gorgeous and captures the scene so so so perfectly. aough

and then finally grays supernova kon with a big beautiful ponytail has been rotating in my mind for weeks. ive always abstractly liked long hair kon but this image altered my brain chemistry i think. next time i describe older kon with long hair please know this is what i mean

i almost went "wait and also--" and added a fourth but ill stop here. im being so brave about this btw

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

answered here!

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately 

immediately went no thoughts head empty and forgot literally everything thats ever occurred to me when i saw this. um

[5 full minutes later]

well i guess heres one. ive been feeling like im stuck in permanent waiting mode wrt my actual life lately, like im just passing time and treading water until i can get back to being a Real Person who's "allowed" to do more stuff/put down roots/have more of a life (i.e. having to put a lot of things on hold for disability reasons the past few years kinda fucked with my head and now i feel like im just playing catch-up), but in recent weeks i've Finally figured out, like, what i want to go to grad school for, so i can start planning for it properly, and that in and of itself (having a direction) feels like such a huge weight off my chest. which is very nice!

[noodleblade]

🔪, 🏜️ & 🪲?

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 thank you:3

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

UHHHHH hmmmm that's a hard one. I forget a lot of my older fics which I'm sure had some nonsense. Recently aside from my horrible magnet research probably different historical methods dissection/mortuary care practices combined with a interior struggler of military vehicles. You know, normal transformers research. Nothing too crazy actually.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

(stealing from a previous ask)

Mmmmmm I quite like when people copy and paste their favorite parts?? its a nice way to know what parts of my writing they enjoyed the most, especially like the actual language? <3

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

(sdkfnjkenfdqejkwdnkqefkd THANK YOU FOR JUMPSTARTING MY WRITING LUNCH BREAK <3333. I take your challenge and apparently double it. A tiny snippet of a soundstar competency kink fic I've been toying with...)

It got worse. Now, Starscream’s flirting was a pointed effort. He was bolder with his actions, demonstrative and daring. A servo on Soundwave’s arm here, a leaned in whisper to spymaster there. The worst part in observing this was not so much Starscream- though the very sight caused burning rage in Megatron’s spark. No. The worst offender came from Soundwave’s compliance. To the untrained optic, it would appear that Soundwave was indifferent to the horrific and occasionally lewd display of Starscream’s interest, but the very allowance of the touch, the close proximity, the saccharine words- all Megatron could see was mutual interest. He would have to put a stop to this at once. Not just because the very notion of Starscream getting what he wanted caused Megatron’s hackles to rise but…Soundwave was quite dear to him and it was finally his turn to repay all those years of loyalty by making sure his friend did not go down a path he would inevitably regret.

[phone-in-the-attic]

How To Catch An Author

Word Count: 1114

Summary: The moments just before my Saw oc was put in his trap. Cadmus Reeves is a rude, bitter, and egotistical man desperately in need of a new hit novel. Little did he know that stranger he bumped into in the lobby would become someone he'd devote his life to. CWs for themes of alcohol, brief suggestiveness, generally unpleasant main character.

Cadmus Reeves awoke to a sickly sweat and a pounding headache. With a groan, he dragged himself from his bed and yanked open the blackout curtains, hissing as morning sunlight drove him briefly blind. He then shambled his way into his bathroom to shower, haphazardly downing pain medication on an empty stomach once cleansed of the stink of his hangover.

Wrapped in his second-favourite robe, Cadmus returned to his bedroom and frowned. A young man with dewy skin was waiting tentatively in his bed.

A stale burp passed through Cadmus and he covered his mouth as spotty memories of the night before returned to him. “The hell are you still doing here?” He spat at the escort.

“I-I thought we might get breakfast…”

“Whatever I told you last night, it was the liquor talking.” Cadmus fished in his discarded pants for his wallet, pulling out a wrinkled hundred-dollar bill and dropping it on the escort’s lap. “Now get dressed and scram, I have work to do.”

The escort quickly slunk out of his bed, clearly not wanting to draw his ire further. With his company gone, Cadmus moved from one end of the apartment to the other, settling into his office with a mug of black coffee. He stared hopelessly at the draft on his laptop. He was far past his deadline and desperately in need of a hit. This had been his second struggler in a row and he feared he was losing his touch. Seeking distraction, Cadmus opened his phone. Reluctantly, he played a voicemail left by his assistant.

“Mr. Reeves, this is your assistant, Bailey Eliott. I’m calling to remind you that you have a meeting with the manager of White Pine Books to discuss the date of a signing event this afternoon, and that you’re exactly two weeks late on your current deadline. Your agent isn’t happy, Mr. Reeves, and frankly, neither am I. When do you plan on packing in the booze and clubbing so you can finish this thing?”

Cadmus scowled, rubbing his temples. “You know, Bailey, if you’re so unhappy with me, why don’t I just fire you?”

He scrolled further into his contacts, finding a text from his friend, Patrick. Despite it all, Patrick always stuck by Cadmus’ side, and though Cadmus enjoyed Patrick’s company, even that didn’t save him from the typical verbal abuse.

Still struggling with your book? Let’s get breakfast at that new café on Potter’s Street.

Cadmus closed his laptop, quickly texting back, I’ll meet you there.

Dressed and groomed, Cadmus left his apartment, hiding his puffy eyes behind dark sunglasses and deflecting stares with a high-collared jacket. As he passed through the lobby of is apartment complex, he bumped shoulders with an older man.

“Sorry,” he spoke shortly, not meaning a single syllable as he tried to continue on his way.

“Forgive me for asking,” the man started, making Cadmus reluctantly stop in his tracks, “but would I happen to know you from somewhere?”

Cadmus sighed, turning towards the man. He didn’t look like his usual audience. “Have you been in the New York Times Best Seller section lately?” He wasn’t sure why he was even entertaining the stranger’s question.

The man chuckled. His voice was rough and deep, but Cadmus found something warm there, beneath the gravel. “Ah, yes, I remember now. You’re that author, Reeves.”

“Do you want an autograph?”

The man put up his hand dismissively. “No, I wouldn’t want to bother you. I’ll be honest, I’ve never picked up one of your books.”

“Right, well, I’m meeting a friend for breakfast…” Cadmus tossed his head with an air of finality, then instantly regretted it as church bells rang in his skull. He turned on his heel and continued walking.

Behind him, the man continued, “I may not be familiar with your work, but I am familiar with the bind you find yourself in. The creative blocks, the self-doubt, I’ve been there before. I find it’s helpful to reflect on the ‘why’ and not the ‘what’ in these situations, Mr. Reeves, and I believe you will, too.”

Uneasy goosebumps patterned Cadmus’ back as he stepped out onto the street and began looking for a cab. What the Hell did that mean? He was glad to put some distance between himself and the stranger.

“Well, you certainly look worse for wear,” Patrick commented when Cadmus arrived at the café, sliding into the seat across from him.

“Went a little too hard on the Sherry Shrubs last night and picked up some downtown boy,” Cadmus admitted lowly. “That and the final third of this book refuses to show itself to me for a second week in a row.”

“Maybe you need a vacation. A little change in scenery to get the mojo flowing again.”

“Jesus, who the Hell says ‘mojo’ anymore??” They paused to order breakfast. “Besides, look at me, do you think my agent’s going to let me slither off to some white sandy beach while I’m sitting in a hole I personally dug?”

Patrick shrugged. “Then why don’t you just cancel this book for now and step out of the limelight for a second?”

“Patrick, I’d laugh in your face if it wasn’t for this damn hangover. I need a hit and I need it soon, or I’ll be saying ‘bye-bye’ to my career whether I like it or not.”

Patrick gave him a sad look. “I’m just looking out for you, Caddie…”

“Don’t you fucking ‘Caddie’ me, just keep your nose in your own damn business.”

After breakfast, which had really turned into brunch, Cadmus ran to meet with the manager at White Pine. If there was one positive to Cadmus, it was that he never forgot the names and faces of event managers, though perhaps it was because they were attached to a paycheck. As soon as he saw the manager, he remembered his name instantly, which saved him from a completely disastrous meeting and won him a signing event later that month. He was just feeling like he might be able to write when he got home when something struck him as odd.

When Cadmus stepped back into his apartment, it seemed far darker than he remembered leaving it. Had he shut the curtains before he left? That seemed like a strange thing to do when he lived so far up. Just as he reached for the light switch, a large hand clamped over his mouth. An involuntary scream was muffled by leather as he felt a pinch in his neck. The darkness swam before his eyes as his body went limp.

For the next twenty-four hours, no one would even know he was missing.

[kuroimarzipan]

📻 Jeltje?

im ngl jeltje's playlist is probably one of my favourite playlists ive made its got music from all over the place and ive been adding to it so much over the years that listening to some of the songs on it is like. straight up making me nostalgic for earlier parts of the campaign. this song is evergreen for jeltje the Struggler tho

[sillybond]

I feel like, I need to express myself a bit because there's an emotional bomb right inside me and It's tiking very fast!

Might get a bit cringy lol

Adventure Time brought many thimgs to my life. It has made me think, laugh, love, cry and adore all about it, the characters, story, the world, the art, the creators, everything! But the singular best thing about it has been the lessons it has taught me. I'm the same age as Finn was is CAWM I ended the show alongside him and, (despite not having been through quite the traumatic mind boggeling adventures as he has) I have learn a lot by seeing him and the people around him.

There's a lot of experiences that the whole AT cast have gone trough. Each one might affects people differently. Maybe you relate with Finn and Marcy for their strugglers with their fathers. Maybe you see yourself in Bonny, with her over controling-work focused mindset. Perhaps it's in Huntress Wizard and her inability to open to other people. Whatever it is, we all have at least a bit of thoose problems in ourselves. Thoose are our battles to fight for.

But once thing that stands above all and gives meaning to fighting thoose problems is the simple fact that whever, whenever or whoever you are your life is worth living.

And THAT is the key. We've seen time and time again how characters break down, have fights, loose people or whatever but what keeps them going is that they know their lives are not only worth living, but fulfilling pieces in a gigantic puzzle formed by all, moved by all forms of life, that they exist to love, to love others and to love life above everything else.

That IS the lesson. Yes! your life my life is worht living! Just because you are alive.

I belive that nihilism is a natural force inside of us. To ask ourselves the big questions (i.e. what is my porpuse, why am I here etc) and then realize that nothing that we respond will matter, cause nothing matters!!! I know captain obvious right here. But it does'nt have to matter to be meaningfull. Love is an end in it of itself, LIfe is and end in it of itself. You aren't alive to do anything in particular. My personal belife is that Life shouldn't be seen as a tool to acomplish anything (because again, nothing that you get will matter), life is tool to get itself. I'm not telling you to do nothing or not help people or don't do what you are passionate about. It's the oposite. I'm telling you to do all that, beacuse it's not only your life but it has meaning just beacuse it exists. As long as you are alive you should persue yourself , search for your life and love every part of the journey, even if it's bad. The trip is infinite, but beautiful and full of wonder and terrible and distraughtful at the same time. But loving it is the key and it doesn't matter it's all worth it cause YOU ARE ALIVE!!!

I'm getting kind of worked out, but I think you get my point.

Every time I think about this I remember both Astral Plane and The Comet. Two of my favourite episodes. In 22 minutes it sumarises everything that I've just talked about.

Previous to those episodes I ditached myself from everything in my life, pretty much. And I just wanted to go to Ooo beacuse it felt like it had a meaning, and there's was cool magic and everything. I'm sure some of you might have had a similar feeling.

But after thoose it made me realise that, no, that wasn't the point. Adventure time wasn't created so you could get hunged up on it and just wish everything was magical, (just like Fionna!!) AT exist so you can realise something much greater the same thing Finn realized when he pondered his existance.

In both episodes Finn choose to live. He saw the world around him, he saw pain, regret, beauty and in the end he choose his life, everything that he had experienced. It would have been so easy for Finn to go with the Catalist Comet and disapear. He wasn't in a good place. Everything had seemeangly gone to crap. He lost his arm, father, girlfriend. But even then he choose the pain rather than being detached forever. He has seen life and death, he has been the reincarnation of both thoose things. He choose life because it was simply worth living.

In a cold, dark universe life shines a glimps of light, a speck that lasts for a blink of an eye, even if it doesn't last it's worth experiencing it and protecting it.

Fionna understud this. Fionna was like me, wishing for her life to be different. But in the end. She saw that that wasn't the point. Finn would have choosen his reaity even if it was non-magical, or better, or worse than what it was, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you love where you are. Finn does, Fionna finaly learned that two. It's a long journey, but it has to be started. And I thank Adventure Time, the crew, characters and everything for this oportunity. To see life in a new light. To make the active choice to live and love and trust and die happily, because if I could be in any alternative universes I wouldn't wish to be anywhere else but in this one.

Thank you adventure time, you taught me to live again.

[wildtornado-o]

Granby & Forthing for the blorbo bingo :D

Granby!! My belovedest Granby my beloved favourite character. So dear. So lovely. So struggler.

I fear he is in fact cursed by the narrative to have everything bad happen to him and he Will complain about it the whole time <3

We could have crazy conversations tbh. <- sharing stories of our godforsaken misfortunes

Bingo for Forthing!! (Kind of. I am not immune to changing the bingo sheets) second belovedest....

You know my thoughts on this man. Shaking him around and chewing on him like a dog. He drives me insane and I am obsessed with him forever and ever . If you get me to talk about him I will not shut up and quickly descend into madness. This is my guy.

I think he'd feel pity on me and that is why we would get along. Friendship through sympathy djssj

Ask Game Here

[chaosincurate]

My month in music - August 2023

Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There (relisten)

Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy (relisten)

Mitski - Puberty 2

Mitski - Be the Cowboy

Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet (relisten)

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee (relisten)

Kate Bush - The Dreaming

SZA - Ctrl

Squid - Bright Green Field (relisten)

Squid - O Monolith (relisten)

Black Country, New Road - For the First Time (not for the first time)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Genesis Owusu - Struggler (new)

shame - Food For Worms (new)

IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance

IDLES - Brutalism

Blur - The Ballad of Darren (new)

Write-ups below

I'm gonna be honest, I'm way later to this than I'd like to be so I'm gonna try to just absolutely blitz through these so I can get onto a project that might end up taking a lot of work'

Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

Note to self: make a post dedicated to this album. It's musically meticulous and thematically compelling, and some of the lyrical work is truly crushing, like you are watching a man crumble slowly over the course of the album's hour-long runtime. It's an absolutely incredible work of art and would be one of my go-tos to demonstrate the unique potential of albums as a format.

With that last note in mind, I would of course recommend a back-to-back listen above all else, but if you must try a song first, I'd suggest the first proper song Chaos Space Marine

Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

This is one of those warm albums that feel really communal and welcoming. It's got more angry moments - I Saw, for example has a war drum rhythm to it as the vocals on the verse are practically spat out - but for the most part, this is a very laid-back listen that captures an improvisational magic without the drawbacks that usually brings.

The previously mentioned I Saw is definitely my favourite from the album, but as I said, it doesn't exactly embody the album's best features. If you want a song that does that, try Geronimo. The song's lyrics tend to speak on the negative sides of life and the inevitability of it's end, but the music, along with some important glimmers within the lyrics, tell you that there is a beauty to even that.

Mitski - Puberty 2

I hear we're all gay here, so I imagine you all know that Mitski is good by now, but just to confirm, Mitski is good. I had heard Bury Me at Makeout Creek a while ago, and intended to listen to more after that, but the first song I heard outside that album was My Body's Made of Crushed Little Stars, which is a great song, but gave me the total wrong idea of this album. Yes, there is a little more experimentation than I remember being on BMAMC, but I was under the impression that it would be way more abrasive from that first impression, and that's great for 2 minutes, but over a whole album, that'd be a lot, at least for me.

I am glad that I eventually got around to this though, because it was a great album. I would have been particularly worse off never having heard Your Best American Girl. It's an excruciating story of a protagonist who is in love with someone who is of an untenably different culture to themselves, which leads to tension, embodied by parental disapproval. It's a great song delivered with buckets of emotion, particularly when the chorus hits.

Mitski - Be the Cowboy

Honestly, this one didn't hit as much for me, which given everything I heard surprised me. I found that most of these songs ended too quickly to make an impact, and I didn't see anything on the album scale to write home about either. She's still clearly demonstrating her talent, and it's still made up of good songs, but they just lacked the impact of her other two albums for me.

That being said, I did particularly enjoy Nobody. The contrast of the disco-leaning instrumental, along with the pretty bouncy vocal melody against the loneliness the lyrics speak about somehow enhance that feeling of it being out of reach. As if Mitski is being taunted by it. It's very effective.

Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds From Another Planet

I am just now noticing the colour theme of the albums I was listening to around this time. Something about orange and yellow spoke to me this month.

This album is incredible. It's the first true demonstration of what makes Japanese Breakfast such a great project for me. The album is broadly indie pop, but it's the form of indie pop that's special: Michelle Zauner carved a niche sound from materials of the more music nerd side of pop music with the tools of lo-fi and soundtracks. The pop music materials come simply from the quality of the production and somewhat normal song structure which come along with some slight experimentation here and there in regards to the sound of the album, that latter point bringing us to lo-fi, which also gives us that unique comfortable, cozy vibe that you hear with Japanese Breakfast, and then the soundtracks portion comes from her excellent ear for creating the ideal atmosphere for a given song's themes.

All the songs on this album, especially the first half, are amazing and pretty representative of the album's sound, but I really wanna focus on Machinist, a relatively experimental cut. It's a song about a lover not being as vulnerable with you as you'd like and that's great, as is the fact that it's conveyed through a story of a woman falling in love with a literal robot, but the instrumental really sells this. There is a constant battle between mechanical coldness and human warmth in the song best conveyed at the end where a sax solo is accompanied by a robotic synth and very faint, distant, robotic vocals. This woman is a genius.

If you'd like something a little more normal, Boyish is also very good. It's a pretty straightforward song about romantic insecurity. If the narrator and protagonist is reliable, their boyfriend is staring at a waitress instead of their date, who isn't buying his attempts at reassurance, and is desperate to feel equally as seen as the stranger he's enamored with. There's a little unreliability to the narration though, because the sentiment switches from spite to yearning often, from "if you go to her, don't expect to come home to me" to "I can't get you off my mind" (followed by the currently irrelevant, but very witty "I can't get you off in general", love that, 10/10, sad tho). That introduces a layer of personal interpretation though: is it a song about anxiety told through a wholly unreliable narrator or is it actually about your significant other not being especially sexually attracted to you? Both are very interesting, and both seem like valid interpretations to me.

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

I love this album so much I made a post about it earlier this month, and I'm pretty proud of it, so please check that out if you're interested in reading more than just "it good. It very good"

Kate Bush - The Dreaming

Don't ask me why this is my first Kate Bush album. I could've sworn I saw this on some list ahead of Hounds of Love or having a higher aggregated rating somewhere or something like that but I can't find it anywhere now that I'm looking for it. But anyway, this is a great album. It provided everything I expected from a Kate Bush album, the weirdness, the stylistically all-over-the-place vocals, the general theatricality... But it also took that style in different directions than I expected, such as with the menacing title track about colonialism.

The song I'd recommend would probably be the fairly expectation-aligned Sat In Your Lap though. Honestly, if you've heard a Kate Bush song before, you won't need a taster for the album at all, it's more of that, but if you need to be reassured of that, the opener is a great example of it.

SZA - Ctrl

I didn't get SOS, unfortunately, felt it was a little bloated, but maybe it's worth a revisit, because over an hour of this seems pretty great. SZA's writing is all incredibly authentic and personal, and her vocals drip sweetly over any instrumental tried here. You don't need another stranger on the internet to tell you that this is a must-listen R&B album, but here I am, yet another stranger on the internet calling this a must-listen album.

My favourite from the album is probably Drew Barrymore, a reverb-drenched song about a relationship that is ruined by jealousy and self-hatred on the part of the protagonist. This is my favourite example of vocal honey on this album, too. This, for me, encompasses all the album's strengths brilliantly.

Squid - Bright Green Field

Bright Green Field is arguably the clearest demonstration of Squid's unique sound. It balances the ideals of punk and funk excellently while adding in some kraut-rock and Radiohead-esque ideas too. I think I might prefer O Monolith personally, but this album is both very close in quality and absolutely crucial for the band.

I think if I were to recommend a song from this album, as much as I love Narrator, I imagine it'd be G.S.K. that best positions the album for enjoyment, at least for most people. It sets up a lot of the themes surrounding urbanization and the contrasting of modern life with the natural to demonstrate modernity's absurdity, and does so expertly, while also providing on the instrumental front with that funk-infused post-punk that makes the album so unique.

Squid - O Monolith

As I said in the previous write-up, this is my preferred Squid album. It leans on that Radiohead influence a little more, I think, which is why I'm glad they established their own sound with their debut first, but I think the sound here is just more to my tastes, and better suits their focus on this record, which is hard to pin down, but it feels more broadly mechanical than the previous outing, more rigid.

I think there are a few really good recommendations for songs from this album, but I'll stick with the critique on policing and generally violent power over others afforded to the otherwise powerless: The Blades. This is one of my favourite songs, period, let alone from Squid or off this album. The way it gets in the head of someone whose only access to power is through the violence of law enforcement, and demonstrates the urge to use that power in that environment is just superb. And it demonstrates it all while also criticizing the amount of power they are afforded and how that makes matters even worse. I love it.

Black Country, New Road - For the First Time

Welcome to the best new six-part post-punk debut album! I hear the Slint influence is a little heavy here, but for one, that doesn't really bother me, and two, I haven't heard Slint yet, so I wouldn't know. Regardless, this album is incredible at getting you into a sort of dark groove, and eventually, when the time is right, uprooting that groove and leaving you completely at a loss for what to expect. Even when you've heard the album many times over like I have, there's a part of you that can't keep up with the erratic shifts in the music within individual songs.

That incredible aspect of the album is best portrayed in the album's best track for me, Sunglasses. It touches on so many themes, which makes it hard to pin down exactly what the song is about, but it seems clearly about wealth and delusion in some way. For me, I think it's about the protagonist being seduced by the toxic comfort of wealth and delusion that wealth is earned and not happened upon randomly. It's a complex song though, and I'm sure there are plenty of valid interpretations. It is 9 minutes, but it's so good and dynamic that you are unlikely to feel all that time pass. Give it a listen if you like the sound of everything I've written here!

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

I never really had a resonant experience with instrumental tracks, which really made me skeptical going into this album. I have had plenty of positive experiences with instrumentals, but they're always pretty analytical, I rarely actually feel anything all that strong when listening. Add on top of that the length of the songs, with each of the four tracks being around 20 minutes, and it was a bit of a long shot. That being said though, this did resonate with me. After a stressful day, I just laid back, put this album on and relaxed for an hour and a half and I felt the album eat the stress from inside of me like a growing black hole, sucking up negative emotion. It was so thoroughly uplifting that I couldn't possibly hope to analyze it. It's difficult to recommend the way I usually would, but if you love music, especially stuff in the alternative and indie orbit, I'd suggest giving this a listen when you have some time to kill, especially if you're stressed or otherwise burdened.

Genesis Owusu - STRUGGLER

From an album that is very happy within a small niche, to an album that could be engaged with on some level by anyone, STRUGGLER is a dance-informed neo-soul album (I guess) that really makes use of the medium by using and reusing metaphors from within it's borders to reinforce themes, and explore new elements of that metaphor that consider the already established subtext. It's all very clever concept album stuff, and I always respect when an artist commits to a concept like this, especially ones who can still make songs stand on their own outside of the context of the album. It's very impressive.

I'd probably say Tied Up! is the best shout for a song to try, it's exceptionally groovy and is probably the point in the album where I'd say it really finds it's groove, which is on the late side, so hearing that in advance could reassure you that the album does actually find it's feet eventually.

shame - Food For Worms

This album is a weird one just because it doesn't really stick to a sound all that much. It bounces very quickly between punky songs like Alibis to a softer alternative style in tracks like Adderall a lot and it makes it hard to settle in a way that I think makes the album listening experience worse than if it were, for example, two EPs of comparable style. Of course, stylistic diversity is often a plus, but it has to be done better than this.

The songs are all pretty great in isolation though, especially when it does get a little punkier, such as with the previously mention Alibis (my personal favourite), or the song I'd recommend, lead single Six-Pack. First things first, that guitar sound is absolutely phenomenal. It gives off an erratic feel, and one of a shifting, untrustworthy nature. And then there's that hyped up vocal performance that embodies frustration at the comfortable delusion characterized in the lyrics.

IDLES - Joy As an Act of Resistance

This was incredible. The name pretty much sums it up. It's a post-hardcore album that is very aggressive on the surface level, but will often have a heart of gold, such as with Danny Nedelko, a song that stands in defiant support of immigrants and immigration, named after the writer's friend originally from Ukraine.

The song I'd recommend is largely just aggressive, but still with a pretty warm thesis in the end, and that would be Never Fight a Man with a Perm, a song about pub violence and the silliness of the extreme macho personas on display in those environments.

IDLES - Brutalism

I didn't like this one as much as Joy, but there were still some definite highlights. For one, it is a lot more punk. This album is absolutely punk to the core, and doesn't share the optimism of my preferred album, which does provide a more cathartic experience.

My favourite is probably Stendhal Syndrome, an album about artistic philistines; the type of person to look at an artwork and judge it based solely on the technical ability on display and not the vision of the artist or the art's emotional impact. Plenty is already made of punk's political leanings, but very little is the subculture's love and passion for art at the forefront, and it's good to see that being focused on here.

Blur - The Ballad of Darren

Unfortunately I don't have much to say about this one. I was hopeful going into it because I did quite like St. Charles Square, but almost all of the album just bounced off me leaving no real impression. Maybe it's worth a revisit one day, because I did mostly respect it on an analytical album, but it didn't make me feel much at all. If you like indie rock, maybe it's worth a listen, I hope you like it more than I do.

[duskoon]

Hi! :D

Just want to say , I LOVE YOUR BERSERK WRITING VERY MUCH. I can't help but be so happy that there is another person who also knows it.

It's okay if you against it but can you make Platonic Yandere! Guts with Female!Y/n who is like an childhood friend and pretty much the only person that showed him affection?

Well. Hello there :D

I am thankful for your kind words, really it warms my heart that people appreciate my writing in spite of me taking, figuratively, a century to publish my works. I don’t blame ya. Yandere writings, let alone general writing, for Berserk is pretty underrepresented.

Berserk is one of my favourite, if not my personal favourite, series. The panel arts are so 👌, and it’s thematics is what initially hooked me up. Sorry for nerding up but consider your request in my list, fellow struggler 😉.