#new pinned post baybee

[pinespittinink]

The Writer: Catherine Hellens. She/Her. Queer adult sci-fi fantasy author, Capricorn since January '96, and hopeless romantic on main. Representation: Shannon Lechon @ Azantian Literary Agency. Newsletter: All This Light Falling | Notes from Catherine Hellens

Welcome to my corner of the internet! This blog is a catalog of my babbling and writing-related interests, and will continue to be as long as I can foresee. I enjoy writing intimacy in all shapes, lush scene setting, and detailed emotional headspaces. All of my stories are queernorm and intended for adult audiences.

I'm currently pregaming before going on sub with my Weird Theater Novel, The Great Glavenisean Theater. Here's a little Sparknotes for it~

⊹₊ . ݁_____________

THE GREAT GLAVENISEAN THEATER🎭 Dreamy weird fantasy, standalone. A tailor goes to the big city and gets swept up by a phantasmagorical theater with an interdimensional portal in the stage, and maybe starts to lose his mind in the process. The Night Circus x House of Leaves x Moulin Rouge!

_____________. ݁₊ ⊹ 

I am also currently drafting In the Deep of the Trees, a court intrigue dark fantasy (House of Cards x Annihilation x a dream I had about Terraria), and developing Star White, a romantic science-fantasy/space fairytale (Sleeping Beauty/Snow White x NBC's Hannibal x The Odyssey)

⊹₊ . ݁_____________

My askbox is always open, and I'm down to talk about just about anything~ my newsletter (linked up top) will have more detailed information about my publishing journey, while this tumblr will be a more casual space. There's a lot knocking around in here, and I have so much I can't wait to write and share.

For now, I'll leave you with a few choice words from fellow writers that I treasure like the little gifts they are.

_____________. ݁₊ ⊹ 

[ Romantic and indulgent prose full of filigree, worlds full of whimsy, mystery and a hint of danger, a core of tenderness rooted at the heart of every story. Your writing is always penned in the manner of a love letter not just to the craft or even as an ode to romance but to the subject of love in itself. ] – Camilla Andrew, author of When The Stars Alight

🪷🌿𓇢𓆸

“for whom / and to whom all this love, / all this light falling.” 

– @ragewrites, Film Still, for pinespittinink. 

[oneironautz]

go here swiftly and without delay

[sixxtytoo]

hi hello nice to meetcha!!! i'm rym (/rɪm/)! i do art and say words and stuff! i draw chihiro fujisaki a bunch that's pretty much all you need to know :]

byf/i

requests & commissions (sheet coming soon) are open!

[dovesndecay]

2025 pinned post

Mireyah K. Wolfe (any pronouns) is an artist of many genders living in the swamps of Central Florida. They are a pierced, tattooed, disabled queer of Irish-Boricua heritage with a deep and abiding love of pigeons, much to the dismay of her dog and two cats. She is a member of the One Big Uwunion, and no, you cannot stop him from calling it that.

Hi there! Welcome to my tumblr! We're all adults here. Behave accordingly. 🔞

I post pigeons, peen, and politics.

I am also a disabled queer with very limited income and too many bills, so I can always use more support! I dabble in photography, and I'm in the process of teaching myself both traditional and digital art, as well as working on a fantasy Ragnarok novel (I think it'll be a novel anyway, we're still early days.)

Follow me on Instagram and Bluesky!

Please check out my Patreon or my art tag #mkw arts.

To send something from a wishlist of things I can't afford to provide for myself:

Chasing [multi]Gender Euphoria

Enriching My Enclosure

The Household Needs

And to donate to my continued survival directly:

PayPal | (link)

Venmo | (dovesndecay)

Cashapp | ($dovesndecay)

Here's to a new year, and improved circumstances for all! 🎆 Twenty-twenty-thrive baybee!!

[cricketnationrise]

writing patterns baybee

rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern

thanks for the tags @kiwiana-writes, @cha-melodius, @doggernaut, and @montrealmadison! since i've been posting mostly ficlet fest fills you're getting some bonus fun: 6 most recent ficlets and 6 most recent non-ficlet fest fics. lets see whats up with my writing below the cut y'all 💜🦗

8:30pm, the brownstone: “…then the donor said something about riding ‘requiring the right equipment,’” Henry giggles, warm from the bottle of wine they’re splitting.

8:00pm, red room: Alex might legitimately be going insane — it’s the most likely explanation for how fucking good it feels to be making out with Henry.

9:42pm, nyu apartment: If you’d told Alex ten years ago that he’d love being pinned to his own couch and kissed to within an inch of his life by Henry fucking Fox, he’d have laughed in your face.

2:19am, alex's apartment: HRH Prince Dickhead 💩: Are you awake?

1:30pm, nyc panadería: Don Paco López, Panadería, established 1991, in the heart of Brooklyn, New York, smells absolutely fucking amazing.

3:47pm, lake lbj: It’s a special kind of surreal seeing both his kids in love.

~~~ Set in Platinum: DrWhomst: *Rafiki voice* IT IS TIME

NFWMB: “Yes, I understand that, but unfortunately it was your less-than-well-moderated website that locked Henry out from submitting his roommate request until after the deadline in the first place.”

the super sick(s): Bea will take the knowledge that she was the one that brought the cold to the Super Six to her bloody grave.

so, kiss me: “Dude, you’re on the Kiss Cam.”

burning brightly through the night: Jon fervently wishes he had any words to offer Alanna as they approach the Great Throne Room.

Downburst: “Alex! Alex, over here!”

~~~ SO. Some patterns: 4/12 are dialogue 2/12 are texts/chat log 4/12 have italics (honestly lower than i thought) 6/12 feature some introspection 7/12 you can tell who's POV it is immediately

idk it's interesting that they aren't more uniform--apparently i like to mix things up!

tagging: @the-lincyclopedia, @missanniewhimsy, @xthelastknownsurvivorx, @firenati0n, @hgejfmw-hgejhsf, @dumbpeachjuice, @smc-27, and @leaves-of-laurelin, as well as anyone who hasn't done this yet and wants to play! 💜🦗

[vv0lta]

Whump Month: Day 1, “Are you okay?”

Guess who’s writing on tumblr for the first time in years? I’m not waiting for a response cos this is a text post (har har I’m so funny). But after joining this wonderful fandom and the Ghost Writers I am very excited and creatively motivated so we’re BACK IN BUSINESS BAYBEE!! But do give me some grace, I am very new to this lot and also my fanfiction writing bones are still thawing, so I might come back to this and make it better at some point, but this is it for now!!

So without further ado, here is the first of hopefully many ficlets written for the Whump Month prompts! 

Relationship: Phantom & Copia (can be read as Phantom/Copia), with referenced Copia/Aether and Sodo/Rain.

Summary: Copia is longing for someone who can’t be with him, and Phantom is longing for someone to belong with. They find one another.

Word Count: 2,262

Rating: Gen

   He felt out of place.

   Something about his existence in the space of these other ghouls, the ghouls that moved so fluidly around one another on stage, and even in this sardine-tin tour bus, felt like a skin-and-bone elbow to the ribs every time he attempted to move. They just knew each other so well, and their energies melded so easily that Phantom - a ghoul of quintessence himself, this should’ve been his strongest suit, melding, slotting into place like a missing cog that finally lets the machine move oiled and sure - couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Their routine was so clearly set, and the longer he spent standing in the doorway of the bus watching them settle, strewing their belongings around and entangling themselves into one another, tails, and limbs, and horns, and all, the more and more Phantom felt wrong. The more he recognised that there was no place in their routine for him.

   So he waited. (He was more than used to waiting, at this point.)

   He’d settled himself outside of the bus, on the fold-down step that left a rigid feeling in his ass no matter how he wriggled against it, and waited until the commotion within settled to comfortable, peaceful quiet. All the ghouls had found their places, and all that was left was for him to find somewhere that would fit him enough that in the morning, when they all went about their routine again, he wouldn’t be an almost-familiar pile of limbs, an inch enough to the left that he caused an obstruction.

   Phantom sighed, as he stood, half wishing the myth of quintessence ghouls being a hivemind were true, if only. Because then - he entered the bus with his shoulders tight to his ears, and his tail coiled around his leg for fear of accidentally thwapping someone in the face if he let it lash nervously - maybe he would know how to make himself fit properly instead of - a bunk had been left vacant for him, untouched and pristinely made up with a black throw blanket - highlighting exactly what was missing, because he was just to small to fit the boots he was filling.

   Hopefully, he thought to himself as he ducked beneath the large calloused hand that dangled from the bunk above his designated one, as the tour wore on he could ease himself in with these ghouls, and maybe - he peeled back the throw blanket to tuck himself under it, curling his tail around the edge to keep it pinned against his body - just maybe, before he was dismissed (the thought tugged his eyebrows to a furrow, tight enough that he felt it pull the golden scar taut across the side of his head) he’d be able to feel like he belonged. 

   It’d been a very long time since he last felt like that, in fact, he hadn’t even gotten the chance to find out exactly how long it’d been before a mask and a uniform had been thrust into his arms. One moment, he was nothing, an energetic concept without the capability of a thought, and then he existed again in the blink of an eye. It was jarring, and nauseating, and (though he would only ever admit it to one other soul) terrifying. But he’d taken it in stride, he had to, the sheer need to be useful, helpful, and wanted far outweighed everything else, but necessity only takes you so far.

   And sometimes the boots are just too big to fill out of necessity alone. (The bed beneath him dwarfed him so much more than the stage had.)

   And sometimes the family is just too tight knit to slip into. (Across from him, in another bunk, Sodo and Rain’s tails twirled around one another off of the edge of the bed, and suddenly his own tail felt cold.)

   This wasn’t his rightful place, Phantom could feel that. The bed was untouched for a reason, it hadn’t invited him to claim it, it was telling him what he needed to know. What he already knew. He needed to get out of it. It didn’t want him there, they didn’t want him there. Why had he even assumed? It wasn’t for him, it wasn’t for anyone, it was a marker, reminding them all of what wasn’t there. Of what he couldn't be. 

   Fuck. He couldn’t stand the feeling of the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, the itch of the fur against his bare arms, or the looming shadow of the top bunk and its occupants above him, he needed to get out of this fucking bed-

   When did it get so cold?

   A heaved breath escaped him and clouded in front of his face as he stepped bare footed out onto the fold-out step of the tour bus. Instinctively his arms and his tail came up to wrap around himself as he sat for the second time that night on the uncomfortable, ridged step that indented his ass. Maybe this was where he fit; just outside of it all, watching, but not participating. 

   But he wasn’t the only one existing on the outskirts tonight.

   As he wriggled on the step, hoping to find some semi-comfortable position for him to nap in, his ears twitched and twigged onto a noise that at first could’ve simply been the sleep-soothed breaths of the ghouls from inside the bus, but the longer he listened, the more the breaths sounded forcedly even, and every few exhales would hitch and hiccough in the same way that he remembered his own doing the last time he…the last time he existed. Phantom remembered the painful shudder in his chest as he cried before he was dismissed; he knew what it had sounded like from his own throat, unsuppressed and free, but this was different.

   Whoever was crying didn’t want to be caught crying. He could hear the nuance, the stutter in their breaths and the way it caught in their throat with a muffled whine. It made his own chest tighten in sympathy, and his throat threatened to close like theirs had, fucking- sometimes Phantom hated being like he was, a quintessence ghoul with no designer. 

   He couldn’t help latching onto other’s essence and feeling everything they felt, he knew he couldn’t, but as tears stung his eyes he hated it more than anything right then. Or at the very least, he would’ve hated it if he had the capacity to feel anything beyond the intense feeling of something missing. A feeling he was familiar with, but magnified, like there was a gaping hole in his very essence. 

   And he needed to fill it. (He needed this more than he’d needed anything in his existence.)

   Phantom stood from the step, his ears tilting radar-like towards the source of the shuddering cries, and heaved himself up onto the top of the tour bus with the help of a few convenient footholds in the door. The ghoul crossed the roof quietly, approaching the silhouetted form at the roof’s edge slowly, hoping to give himself away enough that he wouldn’t startle them into falling clean off the side of the bus. 

   Though perhaps he should’ve been worrying more about himself falling off the roof when his foot dipped into the skylight beneath him and he ended up tripping face first into the figure in front of him.

   They both yelped as Phantom’s jaw connected with their shoulder, and their arms came up to wrap around him to ensure he didn’t keep falling, until an unnatural, synchronised stillness fell over them as they both waited to hear the ghouls stir from within the bus. The two of them stayed entangled, and silent for what felt like an eternity until they unanimously agreed without a word that the coast was clear. Only then did Phantom turn to face his saviour, almost nose to nose with the man who still had his arms tight around his waist - just in case.

   “Papa?” The ghoul whispered in much the same tone that one would have yelled the phrase.

   Copia sounded just as frantic, and tear choked, searching the ghoul’s face with glistening, tear-lit eyes for any sign of pain, “Are you okay?”

   And Phantom found it in himself to laugh. “I-” he gasped, tightening the lid on his laugh knowing that if he let the bout of amusement continue he would no doubt wake all of the ghouls here and in the Pit, “I actually was hoping to ask you the same thing, Papa.” He explained, leaning away from Copia to fold his legs beneath him, his tail flicking behind him.

   “Oh- yes,” Copia turned away from Phantom then (only when he was sure that he was fine, deciding that the ghoul was just too curious for his own good), his voice reaching only just above a whisper, and still tight in his throat from crying. “I’m fine.”

   Phantom’s head tilted, his lips pursing into a pout, “You know, Papa,” he began, a teasing warmth colouring his tone, “I may have been gone for a long time, but I am almost certain that tears,” he thumbed gently at the tears that had dared to spill over Copia’s cheekbone, “Still don’t mean fine.”

   Which cued Copia’s turn to laugh, a bittersweet little laugh that betrayed the hiccoughing breaths that still had his lungs in an iron grip. “No, I don’t suppose tears have changed all that much since then.”

   The ghoul was half tempted to ask when ‘then’ was, but he didn’t want to chance upsetting either of them any further as his lungs began to constrict again, the shock of the situation giving way to Papa’s upset once more.

   “Have I,” the ghoul shifted to sit more beside Papa than facing him, “done something wrong?”

   “No-” Copia replied quickly, turning to catch Phantom’s gaze before it could fall to his lap, “No, you haven’t done a thing,” he wrapped an easy, comforting arm around Phantom’s shoulder, drawing him closer. “You’ve been perfetto, I-I-,” the word seemed to get stuck, refusing to continue from the back of Copia’s throat.

   The ghoul didn’t urge him on, he could feel the frustration building behind the other, overwhelming emotions in both of their chests.

   “You’re a quintessence ghoul,” and were it any other person, in any other moment, Phantom might’ve found it in him to say ‘very astute of you’, or some other comment that would have him tail-thwacked for his efforts, but it didn’t suit either of them at that moment. “You must know how it feels,” Papa explained further by reaching his free hand to his sternum, and tapping at his heart. “Like something, some part of me is m-” And again, it gets stuck, elongating the sound, but Phantom completes it this time. 

   “Missing.”

   Of course Phantom knew. He knew better than anyone could. The other ghouls, they miss people, they miss each other. He’d seen how they needed one another, each part making the clock tick, and how they had to work around their missing pieces, and how the gaps were obvious. But they didn’t feel it, they didn’t feel what was missing. Not like Papa felt what was missing.

   Not like Phantom felt what he was missing.

   A quintessence ghoul and their designer, they need one another. They are what completes one another, while they both exist, and their essence is tied together, joined by the simple act of summoning them, their absence is gaping. Like the whole world has stopped turning around you, and you can’t fathom how everyone else can just…move on. Phantom knew that’s how Papa felt, he felt it then, the hole, the gap in his soul that only Aether could fill. But he knew not only feeling it in that moment, but even alone. It was a feeling that hadn’t left him since being resummoned.

   A quintessence ghoul needs a designer, or at least a strong sense of purpose to function, but Aether still existed out there, so Phantom wasn’t summoned for Papa, he wasn’t made for him (he didn’t belong to him, he just didn’t belong at all). Phantom was summoned as a temporary replacement, soon to be dismissed once Aether was returned, so why should they bother going out of their way to fill all the requirements for a happy, healthy quintessence ghoul? It left Phantom feeling frayed, and unfinished, his essence grasping at those around him for anyone that might…might treat him like theirs. 

   It was only made worse by the way his essence yearned for his designer, the man he was summoned for before. The man who-

   Tears sprung to Phantom’s eyes again, his own this time. And he felt Papa’s arm tighten around him, pulling the ghoul to rest against his chest.

   “It doesn’t have to be missing,” he whispered, the words comfortably rumbling through Phantom’s skull, and the ghoul couldn’t help the way his tail thwapped against the roof of the bus. “Not anymore.”

   Phantom’s own arms snaked up to wrap around Papa’s waist, cold tears soaking through the man’s nightshirt. Syphoning his warmth in the cold night air felt familiar, in a way that only made him hug tighter. And the words slipped from his lips as a whisper, like he hadn’t meant to say them at all.

   Because he hadn’t, how could he commit to this knowing it wasn’t meant to be? It couldn’t last, he couldn’t belong. That was the one thing he knew for certain.

   And yet the words fell from his lips all the same.

   “Not anymore.”

[beingfacetious]

so this year I ~challenged myself to post a gifset once a week, because making gifsets is something I enjoy very much and can always improve in but literally cannot do for money or lbr meaningful validation and I am historically bad at doing things that fit those categories!

I ended up posting 54 gifsets in 2023, one a week plus a few extras lol. A few stats behind the cut just for fun!

Most popular overall: "I'm so glad I met you" with 1,738 as of this morning. Objectively correct. The nicest-looking gifs I maybe made all year and an all-time scene. Made it my pinned post recently.

Least popular overall: A Community set of Jeff making a Dane Cook joke, coming in at a grand total of 39 notes. This was actually a remake of a set I made YEARS ago because I think it's a great joke lmao. A set doomed imo by the youths on my lawn not knowing who Dane Cook is and also tbf Jeff as the only featured study group character.

Honorable mention to the Rangers World Series set I made, but I'm actually floored and delighted that it got 43 notes. There are dozens of us!!

Gifsets made per fandom:

Community: 14 (!)

Doctor Who: 10

Elementary, Mythic Quest, Ted Lasso: 5

Succession: 3

Last of Us, Leverage, Severance, Shrinking: 2

Always Sunny, The Bear, MLB (haha), Scrubs: 1

I'm a little insulted for Elementary tbh! Otherwise this pretty much tracks.

By average number of notes and not counting the one-offs:

Least popular fandom: Mythic Quest with an average of 130 notes across 5 posts. I don't care. I'll win you all over.

Most popular fandom: Leverage with an average of 837 notes across 2 posts, both of which were Hardison/Parker, so...

Most popular fandom not inflated by Hardison/Parker: Doctor Who by a mile with an average of 775 notes per post. Feels good. Feels right. We're back baybee

Interesting split of 18 shippy sets and 36 non-shippy. Including "outliers," shippy sets averaged 621 notes compared to an average of 332 for gen sets. Throwing out the two lowest note-getting posts from each set, the averages jump to 680 and 350. Also not a surprise; fandom loves a ship lol.

Number of sets (avg. notes) per ship, not including one-offs:

Ted/Rebecca: 2 (333) (womp womp)

Jeff/Britta: 3 (267)

Hardison/Parker: 2 (836)

Ten/Rose: 2 (619)

Nine/Rose: 6 (890)

Doctor/Rose: 8 (823)

It shows that I trailed off my RTD1 rewatch mid-s2 lol. (Which seems blasphemous!! but it was never the right time to handle the satan pit episodes, you get it) Doctor/Rose supremacy obviously but also justice for Jeff/Britta, the greatest relationship ever known

Some one-off fandom set thoughts:

The Dr. Cox set was a mostly-for-me fave. The Always Sunny set happened because I thought the Aaron Paul/Bryan Cranston episode was one of the funniest the show has had in years; that episode was also what finally pushed me into watching Breaking Bad this year, which I mostly really enjoyed lol.

The set I made from the finale of The Bear s2 ended up the sixth most popular set of the year with 1k+ notes and it's probably the set I most notice on my activity page every week. It does look really nice but also, I see you, Syd/Richie fandom, and I hear your siren song. Maybe in 2024...

So OK! Hey! I set a meaningless fun goal and accomplished it!! I'm not setting another specific gif goal for 2024 so will probably be a lot more sporadic. Or not! Who knows!

OK pals, thanks for indulging me, happy new year <3

[welcome-to-fazfucks]

OBLIGATORY PINNED POST TIME BAYBEES

Anyways, hey, hi, hello, what's up, and all that good jaz! Welcome to Fazfuck's! Home of the whopper. I'll be your mun for this blog! Now, I'm sure you might be wondering, what in the holy hecking diddly fuck is this? Well, my friends, let me tell you! Welcome to Fazfuck's is an ask blog based on the popular Reborniverse FNaF AU, albeit with a slight few changes to set it apart from the vanilla AU. To see some of these changes, check out the character bios and timeline for reference. Some parts of the AU as of now is a WIP, like FNaF 3 and Purple Guy's general fate. Anyways, here's a list of some of the changes: -The timeline is a sorta mish-mash of the original AU, FNaF 4, and FNaF: SB. I may make more of the other games apart of it, though as of now it's more open in the air. Who knows? -Vincent and Purple Guy aren't the same character in this. They're two separate people here. -The crying child from FNaF 4 takes on Faith's role from the original AU. Faith herself probably takes on a more traditional role, similar to her canon counterpart Cassidy. -Phone Guy has received a new name, that being Gavin Thorn. -Phone Dude has been added and asks can be sent to him -FNaF 3 is currently a big WIP so far. I don't know if I want to incorporate the story from the original AU, but eh I'm workin' on it. -Some parts of the 2019 revival of the AU are incorporated here. Stuff like Mike's parents, Jeremy being canonically transmasc, etc. Anyways, I hope you stick around! I have a lot of passion for these characters, and I'm hyped to be receiving your asks!

[bifidonut]

“what does this mean” asks nobody, but i’m being self-indulgent so i’m explaining anyways 😇

WELL the eel queen shtick was kinda silly and forced from the beginning but the problem is that i’m bad at coming up with usernames. my boyfriend, however, is extremely good at coming up with pun/portmanteau/etc usernames so i decided to jack his flavor a little bit when deciding what my new #brand will be

anyways when i was in college i did some studies in the lab i worked for with Bifidobacterium spp., which i don’t have any strong feelings about BUT i just always thought it was a fun genus name lol. We usually would just say “bifido” when talking about it, so yeah add donut and bam, portmanteau baybee.

while i’m at it, my icon is Hildegar from The Spark in Your Eyes because I’m Love Her. it’s on webtoon (😔) and you should read it maybe 👉👈 if you like uhhhh war and drama and stuff 🥺

anyways i’ll leave the OG post pinned for a couple of weeks (probably longer lol) and then i’ll make a new pinned post with an about or something and links to the pages that are on my browser blog but not on mobile

okay that’s enough outta me for now

thequeenofeels -> bifidonut

that’s right suckers i finally changed my url!!!!!

also from now on my text post tag will be #keelposting (and I’ll update posts with the old tag to reflect this)

okay love you bye <3

[whitehairedanimeboyfriend]

Follow me on YouTube!

Hey all! I'm Crim. Here's a little about me.

I like to draw, play videogames, read, watch anime, and write.

My favourite authors are Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Phillip Pullman, and Terry Pratchett.

I am very firmly against the whole anti movement. I think adults should be free to explore whatever they want to explore within the confines of fiction.

I am very far on the left, though I'm not tied to any one leftist camp.

My favourite foods are sushi, cheesecake, and bubble tea.

I'm in a lot of fandoms, but my main ones are Neon Genesis Evangelion, Zelda, Chainsaw Man, and Kingdom Hearts.

I am queer and indigenous. I am always open to questions about myself and my identity. I am comfortable being an educator, mostly about my queer identity, I tend to be more of a listener with regards to indigenous culture, as my connection is complicated and an ongoing work in progress.

I am an atheist and I do not hold space for any religion or spirituality. I will not seek people out in order to attack them in their own spaces, and I am against bigotry related to ethno-religions. But I will speak my mind when the topic comes up and is relevant and I will occasionally speak frankly about atheism without apologizing for it. If you have a problem with this then you should unfollow me.

I do no tolerate drama or engage with callout posts. If we are already friends and I have you on discord, and you notice I've frequently begun involving myself with people you think I'd have a problem with, let me know over discord. I don't really care what a random tumblr user I've never spoken to before thinks is problematic.

[vividviolence]

Heya ! The name's Snick/BellHop, and I draw art and play the vidya games. This blog is where you can find me posting about stuff I'm really into, so here's an awesome pinned post so you can find certain tags and things !

Fandoms I'm in: Pizza Tower Sonic The Hedgehog Deltarune (and Undertale) Sparklecare Hospital Mad Rat Dead Superb Mario Kirby

Personal tags: my talkin' tag my art tag art tag for other people friend’s art tag gifs

Off blog links: my main tumblr my twitter my retrospring

[alchemeiarchive]

𝚝𝚑𝚎  𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎  𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚜  𝚍𝚘  𝚗𝚘𝚝  𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎  𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚍  𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘  𝚐𝚘𝚕𝚍  ;  𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚌 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎  𝚝𝚑𝚎  𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍  𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘  𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜.

welcome  !  this  is  a  private  & independent  𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞  blog.  i  have  a  lot  of  muses,  &  a  lot  of  niche  muses.  just  pretend  they’re  ocs  !  i’m  𝒊𝒏𝒌,  27,  from  melbourne  australia  ; i  like  the  actor  river  phoenix,  &  brunettes  who  could  kick  my  ass.  *  prev  apothecaery,  paraebellum.  revamped  jan  20,  2020

𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞  𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬  •  𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭  𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫

[quicksilver-rain]

The [Fresno] Gang's all here baybee!!

I finally got the New Kids in the mail (still waiting on a shipment of the OG crew) and I'm so excited!!

[shop link in the pinned post]

ID: The Fresno Gang from top left to bottom right, in some semblance of an order but unfortunately I wasn't really thinking about doing an image ID when I took the picture. Regardless they're all present in some way, and this is what they look like:

Nettie: A Fresno Nightwalker standing facing the viewer, knees bent. They are wearing red high heels and a pair of fishnets that have been pulled all the way up and knotted at the top of their head, since they're technically all leg with no waist.

Oxford: AFresno Nightcrawler wearing pink and teal creepers standing like they're going to go for a walk.

Slides: A Fresno Nightwalker sitting on an invisible surface wearing teal slides with a purple stripe on them.

Peep: A Fresno Nightwalker standing in a pseudo-pinup pose. They have on pink "fuck-me" pumps, fishnets, and blue and pink garters. They are winking at the viewer because they are shameless.

Socksie: a Fresno Nightcrawler sitting down wearing two mismatched purple and green socks.

Boots: a Fresno Nightcrawler crouched down wearing blue Doc Martins, as well as calf-length socks which are yellow with small red campfires on them.

Slips: A Fresno Nightwalker curled up to have a nap, they are wearing mothman "bunny" slippers and are cuddling a mothman plushie.

Nike: a Fresno Nightcrawler wearing a pair hightop Air Jordan 1s in multiple shades of orange and blue. /EndID

[tomoawards]

The Tomo Awards 2018

Hi, welcome to The Tomo Awards 2018, baybee. Before I even get started, I just want to say that we are currently in a musical rennaissance, like an absolute golden age, and there are so many albums I wanted to put here but it was just too hard to pick because the current top 18 is just too solid and hard to pick through.

The header title of each album next to their respective number ranking on this list is a hyperlink to the album of Spotify. There will also be some links occasionally throughout the rest of this post for reference’s sake.

This is a link to the official Tomo Awards Spotify playlist of my favorite songs of 2018, in a general favorite to least favorite order. Over 10 hours of music.

Now let's talk about the albums, can we talk about the albums, please guys I've been dying to talk about the albums with you all year:

#18. Denzel Curry - TA13OO

I initially turned my eye to Denzel Curry, not because of his ties to a certain other artist who is finally dead and I won't mention by name, but because he seemed to have been another boring SoundCloud rapper from the outside. The fact of the matter however, is that that label couldn't be further from wrong. Denzel Curry's third and best album to date, TA13OO, is at its core, a commentary of SoundCloud rap culture and all of the vices it carries with it, as well as of life as a black person in America, on top of being a loose concept album, split into three acts: Light, Gray, and Dark, each of which has its own incredible and similar album cover, with the Dark cover often being used as the main one. And while the three sides of the album don't always correlate with the feel of the music itself, it does add a great way to break this already short enough album up into smaller and easier to chew pieces.

While having come up from SoundCloud himself, as well as being a XXL Freshman in 2016, Denzel's sound here is completely different than the scene he came out of, and there isn't a stuttering 808 hihat to be heard until the very last song of the Light side, Sumo, which could easily be a Lil Pump song; and that kind of juxtaposition is exactly the point - it's a caricature of SoundCloud rap, a critical analysis of it, while still finding a way to respect and understand it.

While only sitting at an easy 43 minutes, it's still a three-sided album, so I think it's only fair to give a highlight from each side. The first song and title track TABOO is easily the most essential track on the Light side of the album, while SIRENS featuring JID (who also dropped an incredible album this year) is a huge highlight of the Gray side. VENGEANCE is the biggest highlight of the Dark side, capturing the mood that the Dark concept shows on the album cover perfectly, featuring violently shouted and screamed verses from JPEGMAFIA and ZillaKami, before fading out into a soft and contrasting outro.

Finish 'em, 'Zel.

#17. Behemoth - I Loved You At Your Darkest

Very few bands have a career as enigmatic of a career as Behemoth; the closest comparison I can even think of is The Beach Boys, because it took them both over ten albums to make their magnum opus. When Behemoth released their most acclaimed work in 2014, their tenth album The Satanist, many had declared it to be one of if not the greatest black metal album ever made. The expectations for a true proper followup was almost impossible to hide, and they had even thrown around the idea that they'd never make another album again. So when they finally announced that a follow-up would be coming this year, the pressure was on.

I still don't think it will be possible for them to top The Satanist, but they closest they could do is at the very least match it, and that's just what they've done with I Loved You At Your Darkest. If anything, this album is just as solid as The Satanist was, and if this came first and The Satanist came second, I think the scores would flip, and this one would be the one with all the acclaim; it's hard to truly meet expectations and wow for a second time in a row, but Behemoth really did the absolute most they possibly could to fulfill those expectations. I Loved You At Your Darkest is truly the dark album its title suggest it would be, featuring the same minor guitar riffs that morph into complex harmonic structures with children's choirs and horn sections to back it all up at its highest peaks. This is another album for the history books.

The biggest points of interest on the standard edition of the album itself is the three-song stretch towards the beginning, starting with God=Dog into Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica, and pouring out into Bartzabel. It is, however, an unfortunate fact that the best song on the entire album, O Pentagram Ignis, was left off the full album and instead made a bonus track on the Japanese CD edition of the album.

#16. Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Hometown

Every single time Weezer drops a new album, fans complain, even if it's just by placebo. But whenever a Weezer fan complains, I'm always the first one to point out that Asian Kung-Fu Generation have been making the albums that Weezer fans want for the better part of the last 15 odd years.

Not only have Asian Kung-Fu Generation done that again with Hometown and the accompanying Can't Sleep EP that came out the same day, the album actually features co-writing credits from Rivers Cuomo himself, and it shines through as obvious as ever in songs like Circus and Dancing Girl, both of which respectively sound like the Blue Album and Pinkerton cuts.

Fuck your language barrier. Asian Kung-Fu Generation have made what people wanted The Green Album and every follow-up to be nine times already, and y'all still haven't noticed. All I know is if I hear even one of you jackasses complain when Weezer drops the Black Album early next year, I'm gonna fucking slap you in the face nine times over again with a physical vinyl pressing of every AKFG album from 2003's Kimi Tsunagi 5 M all the way up to this year's Hometown.

The biggest points of interest here are the cuts UCLA which sounds almost like a spiritual followup to the song "E" from their first album, as well as Dancing Girl, which again sounds like it would fit right into Weezer's Pinkerton save for the language difference.

#15. Wednesday Campanella - Galapagos

In the time since My Bloody Valentine, a completely unrelated band outside of this time comparison, have taken to follow-up their 2013 album MBV with even one EP that they've promised to drop the last two years in a row, Wednesday Campanella have had their entire and absolutely colossal career laid out.

Being one of the most artsy, eclectic, and just hard to pin bands in recent music from anywhere in the entire world, it's hard to even figure out what their thought processes is when defining their releases. Their two debut EPs both vary greatly in size - Norway No Mori is a mere 3 songs long, while Crawl To Sakaagari is 9 songs. Comparatively, last year's SUPERMAN, which was labeled an album, was 10 songs long. This year's Galapagos was 8, 9 if you include the cut single Gala as a bonus track like I did, but it's also still technically considered an EP. Meanwhile their 7 song "UMA" project is considered a mini-album. So fuck it, Galapagos counts as an album for this year.

On to it now, Galapagos was a hard record to stomach at first, if not solely by comparison to their previous...I don't know how many records, actually. Every record by them has always been different, sharing only one similarity - the eccentric artsiness that's so well associated with lead singer KOM_I at this point. What differentiates Galapagos the most however, is just how chill it is compared to their previous work, which is what made this a hard listen compared to last year's ball of high electric energy, SUPERMAN.

But what they delivered this year is no less worthy than any of their previous works, still utilizing the best production in the game right now, still being every bit as innovative as Yasutaka Nakata probably still wishes he could be.

The album opener, The Bamboo Princess, is the perfect starter, beginning with a slow and exotic opening melody, exploding into this huge orchestral and electronic hybrid drop. Melos is the other huge high point here, featuring a tight looping drum beat before building up with a watery, hypnotic pre-chorus, and exploding into the biggest hook on the album.

#14. Perfume - Future Pop

Before anything else, I'd like to pose this question: Yasutaka Nakata, what the fuck are you doing? It's a blessing every time we get a new Perfume album, but it's also a blessing that this album even grew on me enough to make it on my list, because it was a very rough first listen and an even rougher rollout - this is a 12 song, 42 minute album, however the amount of actual new music on here equals four songs and roughly 14 minutes. That's actually 2/3s of the album that we have already heard before it even came out. This is of course, not counting the joke of an "intro" song "Start-Up", which, as an instrumental 50 second intro, isn't really a song. But despite being Perfume’s worst album to date, Future Pop is still worth your time and adoration, as Perfume as a band still stands as one of the most incredible achievements in modern music.

So what did Future Pop do right? Well, it’s best to start with some context: the genre of future bass was born and died in 2014; nothing new has been done with it in 2018 that wasn't already done in 2014, not even what Perfume did here with Future Pop. The reason this happened is solely because the genre of future bass has found some mainstream (as far as “mainstream” goes for electronic sub-genres) success in Japan only just this year; despite not having anything new done with it, the genre that’s partially inspired by Japan, has only just found its way into the country itself. Funny how it do be like that sometimes.

But as far as future bass as a genre goes, we've heard it all before. So what makes Future Pop endearing enough to creep onto this list after such an initially awful first impression?

At it's core, it is still very much Perfume. Yasutaka Nakata, although lacking more self-awareness than ever, is still behind the wheel, and his production is still sparkly, hopeful, and clean as anything you've ever heard. Despite the genre changes, his chord choices and a good amount of his songwriting are still reminiscent of even Perfume's best material, aside from the unfortunate few songs which only have instrumental future bass choruses with ad-libs serving as the only vocal parts; what a great hook, am I right fellas?. Future Pop admittedly could fortunately have been so much worse, however. It also could have been much, much better. If anything, Future Pop has officially made JPN no longer considered the band's worst album.

Songs like Chorairin, Tenku, and Tiny Baby hark back to the heyday of classic Yasutaka Nakata production, whereas songs like Let Me Know and Everyday feel just short of being generic, and the presence of FUSION is elusive to my last two brain cells that remain after the rest of them died trying to figure out why the fuck this song even exists on the album in the first place.

Tokyo Girl and Houseki No Ame, the first single and its respective B-side, both already show their age and lack of place in the album’s main genre styling of “future pop”, sounding more like Cosmic Explorer leftovers than future bass bangers. Mugen Mirai and If You Wanna, however, happen to be the two greatest future bass songs ever recorded, with the latter feeling much too short and leaving listeners wanting more, a theme present through the album’s literal 13 minutes of new music in its 44 minute running time. Did I mention that yet? I’m sure I did, but there’s no amount of times I could repeat that to real drive home the fact that Yasutaka Nakata actually thought it was okay to release 13 minutes of new music and have the nerve to call it a “new” album.

The biggest highlights here are Mugen Mirai (無限未来) which despite the future bass goes so unbelievably hard and also Tiny Baby which happens to be one of my favorite songs in their entire catalogue now and I wish every song on this album sounded like it. The titular Future Pop being their second dive into DnB music is a pretty good one at that, with the first DnB song in their catalogue being Point from their 2013 album Level3.

At the end of the day however, this is new Perfume music, and I will always find a way to love new Perfume music no matter what.

“I feel so happy.”

#13. Rosalía - El Mal Querer

Where do I even start with this? Rosalía did something fucking magic here. Combining elements of both flamenco pop as well as a very slight trap influence, Rosalia and co-producer El Guincho are completely next level in every way. Straight out of Spain, Rosalía picked up traction last year with her debut album Los Angeles, and is already back this year following it up with the absolutely brilliant concept album El Mal Querer.

Opening with the moody #1 hit Malamente, brilliantly and minimally produced, the album's tone is set almost immediately. It's both sassy and modest, both maximalist and minimalist. If you're not familiar with the melodic work of Spanish music, the harmonic structure of this album might be jarring and almost entirely new to you. But if you know what you're going to get yourself into, this is going to be one of the most incredible musical experiences you'll hear all year.

The opening track Malamente is of course a huge highlight, but Pienso En Tu Mira is the most standout track here, combining a huge presence of modern R&B-trap in its production and melody with the flamenco stylings of Rosalía’s native Spain.

#12. SOPHIE - Oil Of Every Pearl's Uninsides

Despite losing a lot of its underground steam as well as its cult status in favor of transparency and visibility (which is in no way a bad thing), the PC Music label and associated genre have finally reached their promised potential they showed in the earl 2010s, with records like UMRU's Search Result, last year's POP 2 by Charli XCX, and SOPHIE's "proper" debut album this year. And with Hannah Diamond's debut album Reflections finally releasing early next year, it seems like PC Music's time to truly shine has finally arrived.

Oil Of Every Pearl's Uninsides, which I'll just call "Oil" from here on out, is equal parts breathtaking, uncomfortable, and mysterious. Oil features the kind of absurdist, abstract production SOPHIE came up on, but with a level of polish and palatability that she's never had before. While her original "compilation album”, PRODUCT (which I’m only just now finding out has been relabeled as a “compilation” [Edit: it’s not even officially an album on Spotify, it’s there as an official playlist of the singles that made the album up]), may have sounded like what abstract art looks like, Oil sounds like what a beautiful, colorful, absurdist painting looks like. It’s like Banksy vs. da Vinci, there’s just no comparing.

This is the kind of music that could come to life as a monster. On my first listen, I wouldn't have even flinched if I saw the cones of my stereo bulging as some kind of monster was trying to burst its way out like some kind of scene straight from Stranger Things. This music sounds like that, like something is going to physically break its way out of your speakers. This is the kind of music that I want people who don't believe in the power and capability of electronic music to hear, because it proves something important: those "lifeless" computers, synthesizers, and drum machines can create an absolute hellscape that most guitar players simply aren't capable of or creative enough to make with just a guitar.

The biggest highlights here are Ponyboy, which sounds like the music itself is trying to actually murder you by pounding you against a concrete floor at a rave, and Is It Cold In The Water, which sounds like somebody is trying to murder you by drowning you in a cave.

#11. Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

What the fuck even is this album. I heard someone say that singer Alexis Marshall sounds like Elvis being forced to sing while being tortured. Musically, Daughters could almost be likened to Nine Inch Nails, but far more raw and more conventional. I really didn't know what to expect when I saw this pop up on Kingdom Leaks weeks before its release, but the artwork looked immediately iconic and it didn't have a pretentious genre tag, so I decided to just give it a go with no expectations.

And that's the best way to go into this. Just know that it's dark, and it might make you feel uncomfortable to the point of anxiety. I'm not even going to say anything else about it. Just go and listen to this, because it is a perfect, beautiful, dark, twisted masterpiece of an album.

Satan In The Wait is the highlight here, for me. It just captures the entire mood of the album. Go get on that.

#10. Band-Maid - WORLD DOMINATION

I'd like to start this off by wholeheartedly apologizing to Band-Maid for how much I've made fun of them and their fans in the past. I'd like to ammend this by saying I do not apologize to their Asian-fetishizing white people fanbase - you're all still creepy, cringey, disgusting little neckbeards.

This really came to me as a surprise. I have ruthlessly made fun of Band-Maid in the past. Like a lot. Despite still enjoying Maid In Japan a lot, which you will get roasted on their subreddit for even saying anything positive about even though it is their second best album next to this one, this one really caught me off guard. And while their first album has a lot of pop centric songwriting, they traded that off on the three records that followed by going super hard and edgy, almost to comedic effect as a way of trying to win over neckbeards who heard a Babymetal and think that you "have to play your own music to be good".

But World Domination does an unbelievable job at combining that hard edge with incredibly catchy pop songwriting, creating a really enjoyable heavy guitar pop experience that I haven't really heard out of Japan since the first BiSH album. Seiko Oomori tried to do similar this year but completely failed at making it stand out to an album like this in the same year, as well as her own past crowning achievements like last year's masterpiece kitixxxgaia.

Anyways, Domination is one of the best songs of the year with a chorus that makes me want to like punch of a fucking window or something, and Anemone is this super emotional pseudo-acoustic banger that will probably make you cry from its chord progression alone.

Band-Maid: I apologize. Band-Maid fans: fuck you  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#9. Kero Kero Bonito - Time n Place

Not unlike Band-Maid at all...how the fuck did Kero Kero Bonito of all bands manage to make an album this good after years of embarrassment? Now I've been into KKB for years, since the original Intro Bonito mixtape dropped. Sarah was a part of the same online weeb community I used to be a part of. Everybody pretended to like KKB because they were about the only other weeb music group besides Slime Girls that showed some potential to break through into the actual music world.

But trading in those sick beats for conventional instruments, while not something I'd ever really endorse because guitars don't automatically make music good, dad, happened to be the best thing they could have done. KKB is a real band here now, and their experimental punk, tweed-pop, noise, J-pop, whatever, songwriting on this album makes it an absolute pleasure to listen to. It also doesn't help that Sarah doesn't sing even a word in her awful native Japanese.

Jolly good show, KKB. The second and third songs Time Today and Only Acting are an immediate attention-holder for the rest of the album and absolute show-stoppers.

#8. cacophony - Harmony

Completely out of left field, and off the suggestion of a friend of mine, who I know for a fact that when he speaks highly of something, it's worth that hype. I initially put this suggestion on the backburner until he came back to tell me that this album is on the level of Ringo Sheena's masterpiece Kalk Zamen Kuri No Hana, which still stands in my opinion as one of the top five greatest albums of all time. That's when I cleared my plate and sat down with this.

Cacophony is an artist from South Korea who is still criminally unheard of, especially after an album as personal and breathtaking as this. While I don't think this will ever be the legendary masterpiece that the Ringo Sheena album is, it truly does share a very similar, dark, and personal vibe. Inspired by the unfortunate passing of her mother, Harmony (known as Hwa in Korean) is a dark introspection into Cacophony's grief, and that feeling alone is presented in its gritty but relaxed production as well as her violently powerful vocal delivery.

You don't need to know a word she's saying here; I for sure don't speak Korean or even the occasional French that these songs are in, but the emotions conveyed here transcend any language. It's a dark album, and you genuinely may walk away from this in a bad mood, but it's an album any music lover simply can't miss, so maybe bring your serotonin along with you.

The biggest highlights here are In The End, a strong track with the most emotionally vulnerable and powerful vocal performance of the entire year, and Sick Boy a violent and brooding song that almost feels like it's dragging its own coffin behind it.

#7. Lucie,Too - LUCKY

Lucie,Too shouldn't be as good as they are. By every rule of music theory, absolutely nothing about this should be as fun and investing as it is. Lucie,Too makes the kind of music that every American band like Cayetana and Soccer Mommy wishes they were making. They're making some pretty decent waves, for a relatively tiny band from a town like Utsunomiya, even in the western world.

Lucie,Too is to the point if anything else. Their songs are short and get right to the good stuff. LUCKY, their most-watched song on YouTube, sits at only a minute and a half long; but don't think this is a punk band anything. The song sits at a really easy 93 beats per minute at double-time and just breezes along at its own pace. Most of their songs follow this mellow, flowing tempo, and feature really honest and genuine production - nothing too raw, but not over-polished either. Nothing about Lucie,Too should be as good as it is, but there's just a simplicity and raw honesty to their music that I haven't really heard from much other guitar music recently.

They also dropped a new EP called "exlover" in November that features one of my top three songs of the year, Saigo No Hi, which means The Last Day.

Anyways, the biggest highlight here is probably Siesta and the title track LUCKY, but honestly, the whole thing is short enough to be one highlight in its own right.

#6. KIDS SEE GHOSTS - KIDS SEE GHOSTS

Yeah, Kanye lost his mind, but that's all over the news so you can hear about that somewhere else some other time. Right here and now though, we're here to talk about how mans Kanye still makes some of the most fire music in the game, and this is the worthy successor to every album he's made in the past that Ye just wasn't, despite the fact that I still like Ye a lot more than everyone else seems to, but let's not digress and just get right into it.

Welcome To Heartbreak is my favorite song on 808s, Gorgeous is my favorite song on Dark Fantasy, and Father Stretch My Hands Part 1 is my favorite song on Pablo. So why wasn't I one of the people who was excited for this destined Kanye x Kid Cudi collab album for years and years like everyone else? I guess I just never made the connection, because this is genuinely the exact perfect step forward that Kanye's perfect discography deserves. It's just unbelievable that at such a shaky and tender time for him, he's still capable of making something brilliant.

I admittedly didn't care for this one on my first listen at all. Then I listened a second time and it clicked immediately; this album is as colorful as the Takashi Murakami artwork on the cover, it's as haunting as the ghosts painted on it, it's as psychedelic and moody as you'd expect anything Cudi doing, and it's as brilliantly produced as you'd expect anything Kanye doing.

At only 7 songs and short of 24 minutes, this album is digestible enough to listen to in one quick sitting and easy enough to be one big highlight. But as far as individual songs here, Freeee (Ghost Town Part 2) (best paired with Ghost Town Part 1 from Kanye's 'Ye' album that came out the week prior) is phenomenal, but the biggest highlight to me is Cudi Montage, which features a guitar riff that's immediately obvious as being played by the late Kurt Cobain himself, and eventually evolves into this huge harmonizing climax that's completely unmatched to anything else in the five album Wyoming Sessions that Kanye did this year.

#5. Vince Staples - FM!

Vince Staples is the best rapper alive. There is a tie for first place, but just know he is the one tying for it and the other best rapper alive will be further down this list.

Just right down to it, FM! is hard, and it's short. Continuing along with The Year Of The Short Album, FM! stands at only 26 minutes long, 11 tracks long, 3 of which are small skits; Vince himself actually laughed at the fact that the industry even bothered to call it an album, seeing as the album is just a minute short of being as long as 2016's Prima Donna EP.

There's nothing here as innovative and forward as Big Fish Theory, but that doesn't even matter here. What's special about FM! is that Vince almost seems to be having fun here, at least on the surface. Dive a little deeper into the lyrics, and you'll see that Vince is just as nihilistic and political as ever.

Thematically, the album is presented as a sort of short radio program, featuring DJ skits between songs and previews for other artists like Tyga and Earl Sweatshirt's new music. The beats are hard and pretty standard, but capture the exact amount of discomfort Vince's debut Summertime '06 delivered.

Outside and FUN! are the bangers here to really keep your ears on.

#4. Noname - Room 25

Noname is also the best rapper alive. Y'all have been ignoring her for too long. There, I said it. There is a tie between her and Vince Staples for best rapper alive title. Following up her brilliant 2016 mixtape Telefone, Room 25 is a much darker and more nihilistic approach to the familiar Chicago sound that her and the rest of her hometown borrowed from the old Kanye.

In an industry where Nicki and Cardi B are at the top despite how problematic and lackluster they've proven themselves to be both musically and lyrically, Noname immediately addresses the game's attitude towards women summed up with the simple one liner:

"And y'all still thought a bitch couldn't rap huh?"

Tackling issues like the sexism not only faced by women in the real world, but also within the industry she is a part of, as well as the black experience in America, Noname really comes through on the honest front here delivering bars that artists like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole probably wish their labels would let them say.

Prayer Song and Self are the real winners here. Just...please go listen.

[ALBUM COVER REDACTED because Noname said she would be having a new album cover created after sexual abuse allegations came after the artist of the original album cover.]

#3. Haru Nemuri - Haru To Shura

I have to live the rest of my life knowing that I am part of the catalyst to Haru Nemuri's western success. It was I who told Anthony Fantano about her. She is now one of the most streamed Japanese artists (IIRC, don’t quote me on that) on Spotify because of his review. If only that melonheaded fuck understood just the level of influence his platform has to give incredible foreign artists the attention they deserve. Ash, my friend and J-music plug, from Arama, shared her with me much earlier this year, and after Haru To Shura came out, I slipped that and LOONA yyxy to Fantano. But enough about melons.

Haru To Shura is a masterpiece. There's no possible way for someone to describe this album to someone who only listens to western music, and that description alone should interest you. To those who have heard music outside of the western hemisphere, this album almost sounds like what Shinsei Kamattechan would sound like if Seiko Oomori were singing instead of Noko. Which is a great comparison, because both Seiko and Noko have been known to collaborate with Haru recently.

This album is raw and abrasive, but it's also strangely beautiful and avant-garde. Haru likes to call herself a "poetry rapper", who raps, hastily monologues to herself, sings, and screams over disgusting and dreamy shoegazey punk music. I like to think of Haru Nemuri as the next in the lineage of out-of-step women in J-pop, the line of which starts with Jun Togawa and follows Ringo Sheena and Seiko Oomori all the way up to Haru.

Sekai wo Torikaeshite Okure is the song that really made me pay attention, and I'd like to hope it'll be that for you too, so go peep that one first if you're remotely interested. And if you're not - have fun living your whole life without this perfect gamechanger of an album

It’s also worth noting she dropped a fucking amazing EP this year called Kick In The World, featuring its title track, an acoustic version, with four asbolutely batshit remixes of the title song sandwiched in-between them. This song was a leftover from the album that she said would have bloated down the tracklist. Finally an artist who has the self-awareness to cut music in favor of the listening experience. Can’t say the same about Drake.

#2. YESEO - Damn Rules

I don't really know where to even start with this one. I've always considered Neon Bunny, Aseul, and YESEO to be the holy trinity of Korean indie electronic music, and while Neon Bunny's Stay Gold might still be one of my favorite albums ever made, Damn Rules proves that the Korea might have a new underground queen.

YESEO came out of nowhere only two odd years ago, and to say she hasn't had a prolific career in that short time would be insulting; in 2016 and 2017 alone she dropped two mini-albums, an EP, a ton of assorted singles, covers, a feature on I.M (of Monsta X fame)'s mixtape, songs for K-drama soundtracks, and a single with SM Entertainment. But all of that was smooth trap and EDM-infused R&B.

What sets Damn Rules apart from not just the competition, but her own past self, is that it's hard; like really fucking hard, and it's dystopian futuristic sounding. Like, this is what the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack should sound like, not some 2000s white people-ass Jack White-ass blues rock bullshit.

The lead single Bitches Rule still stands as one of if not my favorite song of the year. It's gritty, horny, and sounds like a deep cut from the musical landscape of 3018, and that's a theme that continues throughout every song on the album. Even the instrumental track Mess, despite its future bass-driven hook still manages to impress in a way that future bass hasn't since its peak in 2014.

The fact that Damn Rules doesn't have the streaming numbers that last year's Million Things does should honestly be an intergalactic war crime.

This is gonna be one of those albums that people are gonna look back at years from now and go "yeah, that was really something else", regardless of what she does next.

The biggest highlights here are of course the lead single Bitches Rule, the hypnotic electro-trap song Cigarette Light, and the club banger Honey Don't Kill My Vibe, which sounds nothing like the Kendrick song it gets its name from. 

#1. Travis Scott - ASTROWORLD

2019 kids will never know what it was like to bombard Travis Scott with memes that say something along the lines of "drop Astroworld right now" every time he tweeted. Let me preface all of this by saying I waited for Astroworld longer than you did. I have been listening to La Flame since the Days Before Rodeo days. I pushed Rodeo on all of my friends who liked hip-hop since the day it came out and all y'all ignored me until Astroworld. Y'all still think Birds is bad. Birds is good; it's better than Owl Pharaoh. It's better than Huncho Jack. Granted, anything is. But Astroworld is as good as Rodeo.

Astroworld is the sequel the real ragers have been waiting for. I'll admit, I was worried after Butterfly Effect, Huncho Jack, Watch, and all of his other recent features save for a few quality ones; I was worried that that generic Butterfly Effect flow would predominate Astroworld. But save for a few small hiccups which honestly don't matter in the grand scheme of things, Astroworld completely delivers on all fronts and defies the expectations he set on himself. It is not just a rollercoaster ride, it is a front to back day out at an interstellar theme park.

Sicko Mode actually sounds like you're on a rollercoaster, with the stuttering snare drops before the beat switch taking the place of a rickety chain pulling you up the hill before Drake pushes you off downhill into four loops or something. Astrothunder actually sounds like you're floating through space under a meteor shower. Coffee Bean actually sounds like you're walking back through the park at the end of the day. Thematically, Astroworld is a masterpiece. Musically, it's two levels above anybody and everybody else in the game.

Astroworld is one of the truly rare cases where something so mainstream with such a large mass appeal normally wouldn't be, and that alone makes it so worth the hype. Very rarely do you see an album so innovative and musically brilliant manage to break the top 10, let alone come out as the number one album of the year. Just like when Frank Ocean's Blonde was snubbed for its Grammy despite overwhelming success and critical acclaim, Astroworld too has been snubbed for its well-deserved Grammy over Drake's piss-poor, lukewarmly received Scorpion.

Songs like Skeletons, Astrothunder, and Can't Say shouldn't even be considered rap songs, because hip-hop is only a surface element here. A song like Sicko Mode, with three beat switch-ups, the first of which happens right as the song starts to take off before cutting itself short, with nothing resembling a hook or any traditional pop song structure, shouldn't even be the #1 radio hit that it is, but it just is. This is the rare example of something that in no way should be mainstream but is and 100% deserves to be. It's the kind of genius that can be appreciated on both the surfacelevel as a casual listener, but also for people have a finer knowledge of music to dive deeper in with.

In a world where each of the Migos, Lil Yachty, Drake, Tory Lanez, and RaeSremmurd are dropping 20+ song albums with almost all filler and little to no killer, it's a breath of fresh air to see an album as long as Astroworld filled with nothing but highlights.

[cypressbranch]

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