#this artist is really rising on my list of favourites

[mossspond]

BOLAVLK/WEREAWOLF sournoodl - 2023

CW: Flashing imagery (6:07-6:27), online grooming, mentions of zoo/pedophilia

[waldau-archived]

hii! I've noticed that you haven't written anything for minghao yet (according to your master list) so I wanted to request something cozy and homey with him. like maybe cooking together or waking up together or something along those lines.. :)

hello anon! i was feeling extra sappy with minghao and this also happens to be my first work for him. thank you so much for requesting it, i hope you see this!

gender neutral reader. warnings: none.

muse — xu minghao | 1,382 words | fluff

minghao blinks his eyes open to the sound of silence. there’s not much he can hear right out, except for the distant sound of cars going past. he lazes around for a few more moments before giving in and checking the time on his phone.

it’s just shy of six in the morning. he needs to be up and at the studio by nine, but he doesn’t feel like moving just yet. he puts his phone away and turns around to you, to watch you sleep.

the first time he’d ever done it was unfortunately a time you weren’t actually asleep, and he’d ended up staring at you for ten minutes before you woke up and apologized to him, saying that you couldn’t pretend to stay asleep without wanting to burst into laughter.

he still remembers how embarrassed he’d been by that, and how you made it up to him with kisses and multiples reassurances that it had been okay, that he could do it again, that it wasn’t a problem at all, you’d just been caught off-guard the very first time.

the thing is — minghao adores you. he’s in awe of you. to him, no one else on this planet even compares to how exquisite you are. he loves how like-minded the two of you are, how affectionate you’re with him, and how much you support him without even saying any words. of course, he loves going out on dates with you, seeing new places with you, seeing you match the outfits he wears, but this might just be his favourite sight in the world.

this being seeing you asleep on your side, facing him, a hand tucked under your head and the other holding his own. as an artist, he’s used to noticing the finer details about everything he sees, so when it comes to you, he could lose himself for hours noticing every single thing about you that makes him love you more.

minghao gently untangles his hand from your grasp, drawing his own blanket over you properly so that you don’t feel cold. he immediately feels the cold winter air hit his bare arms, and he winces as he gets used to it. he’s going to need to workout before he leaves, because there’s no time for it in the evening. not if he wants to finish work fast enough to come back to have dinner with you.

his fingers itch for a brush. it’s been a while since he’s painted something. the last thing he’d put on his canvas had been a rendition of a sunrise he’d been able to see with you a few weeks ago. it had been magical; the beautiful hues of orange and yellow blending with the shimmering brightness of the sea, contrasting the pale hue of the sky.

but nothing looked more beautiful than you sitting next to him, watching the sun rise and letting the water wash over your legs. he’d been tempted to paint you instead, right there, but you’d dragged him out on a monday morning for inspiration, despite the fact that both of you had work soon, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

but he doesn’t really need inspiration. not when you’re his muse.

he runs his fingers across your face as gently as he can, glad that you’re still asleep. you’ve been having trouble sleeping recently, and he’s glad he’s part of why you’ve been sleeping better. he smiles when he notices two faint pillow creases stamped into your cheek, angry red lines that he hopes don’t hurt you at all. you somehow manage to look even more perfect with them.

he doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at you before your eyes blink open slowly, and somehow his eyes are the first thing that yours find. he holds his breath, waiting for you to speak.

“hao?” you ask, voice croaky. “what time is it?”

minghao checks his phone again. “six thirty-seven. you still have twenty three more minutes to sleep, if you want.”

“mm,” you say, before you roll in closer and pull his arm to yourself. “wake me up at seven, then.” before he can say anything, you look up at him. “aren’t you supposed to leave early today?”

he nods. “do you want me to leave?”

you huff and tug at his arm to pull him closer to yourself, and he goes down willingly. “you know that’s not what i meant.”

“what did you mean, then?” he asks, pinching your nose softly.

you’re used to his teasing by now, so you just roll your eyes throw an arm around his waist. “did you sleep well, hao?”

“really well. you?”

“me too. but…how long were you staring at me this time?”

he feigns shock. “you could tell?”

“i can just…feel it, somehow,” you giggle. “won’t you tell me?”

“do you really want me to?”

“of course,” you say, eyes shining despite the layer of sleep clinging to them. minghao wishes he could spend more time with you like this. it’s almost like you’re forcing yourself to stay awake despite having some more time to sleep, just to talk to him. the thought warms his chest.

“maybe forty minutes? maybe more.”

there’s a grin on your face. “correct me if i’m wrong, but…i think you love me?”

he could just refute it, tease you a little, joke that you’re in too deep, but he can’t. there’s something about the early hours of the morning combined with the fact that he has the honour to wake up with you that makes his heart heavy. he’s lucky to even have this, especially with you.

“you’re right,” he says, voice rough, feeling his waterline sting suddenly. “i love you.”

the grin on your face disappears slowly. “hao? is everything okay?”

“of course it is, darling,” he says, bending down to kiss your forehead, brushing off some rogue strands of hair to kiss it properly, tucking it behind your ear so he can see your beautiful face better. “i love you. is that wrong?”

“no, silly,” you say, leaning up to cup his cheek in your palm. your hand is cold. maybe he should’ve warmed you up better. “you sound…sad. like there’s something eating at you.”

he closes his eyes and indulges himself in your touch, trying to work out his words, marvelling at how easily you can read him. “i…love you. you know that, right?”

“yeah. i love you, too. but…?”

“but,” he sighs, “i just…don’t have the right words to tell you how much i love you. i could say i love you a thousand times, but it wouldn’t be enough. i could kiss you a thousand times and it wouldn’t be enough. i could…i could ask you to marry me but nothing would be enough to tell you how thankful i am that you’re here with me. that you’re mine.”

silence, just the two of you in your bedroom, the sounds of life filtering in from outside the window.

your breath is shaky when you speak. “hao.” you drop your hand down to his arm. “i love you, too. you don’t…i don’t need any grand gestures from you. just…be with me. every single day. be mine forever. that’s it.”

“there’s nowhere else i want to be.”

“then that’s all i need.”

minghao presses a kiss to your head. he hopes it conveys everything he’s feeling right now. he’s about to say something more when your alarm goes off, and he really should get going if he doesn’t want to reach work late.

“see you in the evening?” you ask, hand catching his as he attempts to get to his feet. “maybe we can talk about…getting married? for real?”

minghao hasn’t even opened the curtains yet, and he feels like he’s standing in front of the sun again. he’s going to go to work, do well, come back home to you and hold you and hear about your day and eat with you. he’s going to surprise you with a painting of yourself, and he’s going to marry you. that’s the life he’s built for himself with you, and he loves it.

it’s all he needs to keep going, every single day.

“i can’t wait. i’ll be back before you know it, darling.”

taglist: @bookyeom @wootify @strnsvt @cloudycaramel @thepoopdokyeomtouched @minnieminshi @nonononranghaee @hrts4hanniehae @viewvuu @bewoyewo

[tavyliasin]

The Highs and Lows of Fandom Creation

Hello darlings~ It has been a little while and this one has been on my list to get to for a while, and with the Baldur's Date Valentine's Fanworks event soon to draw to a close it seems appropriate to start preparing ourselves for the cycle of what happens when we release our works into the wild. So without further ado, our latest essay~

The RollerCoaster of Emotion That Comes With Being A Creative In Fan Spaces (FanArt, FanFiction, Cosplay, Photography, Music, and So Much More) ((Another CallOut Essay Prepare To Be SEEN)) (((Also I Have Some Coping Techniques Here Too!)))

As usual with my essay pieces I will be making plenty of use of the headers to divide topics, and I fully welcome any thoughts and feelings in the comments. Whilst I am really only in the FanFic side, and a focus on Baldur's Gate 3, I do intend to make this essay inclusive of the trials and tribulations that we all tend to face in making and sharing fanworks of all kinds and through all fandoms. The more people I speak to, the more it seems to be a universal experience, so hold on to your hats it's a bumpy ride! The first part will talk about the Rollercoaster itself, the how and why behind it all, and the second will be around how to cope with it. For readers and appreciators of fan content, I urge you to have a little look too, and at the end I will add in some ways you can help support your favourites too~

Creatives Are Emotional Beings

Starting off with the obvious callout - most of us are. We feel things deeply, and that emotion can often be an incredible driving force behind our works. Whether we're creating around things we've experience, being inspired and influenced by our current emotions, or drawing on our well of imagination to work out what characters might feel (and often more importantly how/why they feel that way), emotion is a strong part of the process.

This can be an incredible strength! Tapping in to the deeper parts of ourselves, our experiences, and the emotions at our cores, can bring out the very best in our works across all creative formats. It also tends to help our audiences engage too, as they recognise their own emotions mirrored in the works.

The Downside to Strong Emotion - The Rollercoaster Effect

This chart was initially drawn up based on writing, but truly after speaking with a few beloved Discord friends it was quick to see that this easily applies to art as well, so I'm going to go over this slightly differently to the initial plan.

The Start Of Every Ride

We begin usually around a neutral baseline, or maybe a little below if we haven't created in a while, perhaps we might start higher than baseline with the rush of an exciting new idea. Either way, the first part of the project tends to go up in mood very quickly when we share those early unfinished parts.

For writers this might be a beta reader or sharing a sample of the work as they're still writing as a teaser, artists might see this as their initial sketch or linework stage if they're sharing progress and teasers too. Cosplayers could be the first part of a build, musicians sharing a few bars of the melody - whatever it is, that first little positive boost that says Keep Going is a powerful one.

But what happens next? Well, you still have more work to do! That initial boost and confidence can drop down to a slump, especially if it's taking longer to complete than you thought it would, and double that if something goes wrong that needs to be changed or fixed.

You may, hopefully, find it begins to rise as things start to come together again and that finish line in sight, but then...

I Finished Making The Thing, Now What?

Well, first you're going to feel that massive surge of satisfaction from completing the thing. Sometimes a dopamine rush in the brain, and all that excitement of "Finally I get to share the thing I worked so hard on! It's done!" So, off you go, you post it. You share the links, maybe drop them in some Discord servers, other social media...and then, often very quickly, it hits you.

Post Publishing Drop

Those of you in the convention and event scene might also know this feeling as "Con Drop", which can take a little longer to manifest. Post Publishing Drop hits quite quickly. Sometimes it might take a few hours, but other times it starts almost within minutes of posting as all that rush of energy finishing and publishing is just...gone.

If you're lucky, you might get some quick and early feedback, especially if you're a well known or popular creator, but I imagine even those of you who tend to get very high engagement can feel a lot of this too so I don't mean to exclude any of you in any way at all~ So what is it? What's happening? WHY?!

Well darlings all that adrenaline is wearing off and realistically you're not likely to get that creative feedback and validation instantly. So that wonderfully powerful emotional heart of yours is going to crack a little. It won't last, it won't stay this low, but good gods that lack of engagement and positive reinforcement can be devastating.

The first engagements you get - kudos, likes, reaction emotes on a Discord post - they may be enough to boost you right back up to your baseline or even a little above, until the worry creeps back in again. And I know that it does, clawing and slithering in the back of your beautifully creative mind whispering those horrible lies:

Why isn't this getting the reaction I hoped for yet? Is this work not as good as before? Have people stopped liking me? Is the website/platform hiding my work? Have I upset people somehow in ways I can't even see?

Then Back Up We Go, And What Goes Up...

Hopefully those voices don't get a chance to be too loud for too long before you see more of that engagement. Maybe it's a heartfelt comment from someone, or a share from someone you respect, or just a little surge of interaction in general. You're back on top, darling, your creative heart is soaring, finally your work is being seen in a way that reminds you why you put in all that time in the first place!

And each time, the high wears off again, with a drop, though the extremities of each is likely less and less as time goes on. Unless, of course, we make one little mistake and the gradual confidence build comes crashing back down...

The Perils Of Comparing

Sometimes this might be looking at someone else's work, seeing a similar style or similar topic get far more engagement than your own. It can be really hard not to feel discouraged by this, and falling into that trap of questioning where you're "going wrong" can lead to absolute agony - I urge you to do your best to move away from this as soon as you notice the feeling. I'll cover some proper techniques later though, I promise!

The other trap with comparison can be looking at your own past works, and over-analysing why some pieces never got the same love and appreciation as others. Picking it apart to find what you can do better is not as wise a plan as it seems for one simple reason:

Over half of this is down to pure chance!

It might be the time of day it was posted, or just one or two people seeing it and deciding to share it on that gives a work a massive boost to interaction and engagement. Maybe a work was lucky enough to get shared in a prominent community by one of the members, or even had someone with a huge following give it a boost.

At the end of the day, there seem to be very few ways to predict this. Of course there are some characters, topics, art styles, writing tropes, etc that will have a tendency to get more love from their respective fanbases - that's how popularity works - but there is no guarantee that, for example, two portraits of the same character in similar styles by different artists will have the same levels of engagement and "success". The main person you should be aiming to please with your own work is yourself~ After all, when working on it you will be the one going over it again and again, knowing every detail in and out, if you don't love the subject of those details your less likely to even reach that finish line~

And It All Begins Again

At the end of the cycle there's often one last spike up. Maybe it's a comment or interaction from someone who truly felt the depth of meaning in your work as you hoped it would, or you realise that it has done better overall in the numbers, or most often you get that creative surge of a shiny new idea that calls to you with that familiar siren song, promising the high of satisfaction and sweeping the memory of that Post Publishing Drop under the rug all over again so you won't see it coming when you trip on it.

How Do We Get Off This Ride? Where's The Safety Bar?

Darlings, be honest, you didn't want to stop. You still don't. That's why you're still right here, reading this with me. Your cycle might take a day, a week, a month, or you may go through the whole thing in a matter of hours.

Riding The Waves

The first way to begin coping is to prepare. Know yourself and how you're likely to feel, and plan ahead for it. If you know the drop is coming, you can try to avoid it, or deploy distress tolerance when it feels too much.

On a very simple level, this can be reminding yourself that the lows do not last, and those highs will still be there. You might even be tempted to try to regulate the highs as much as the lows, to bring everything a little closer in to the baseline throughout the cycle.

Distress Tolerance techniques can be important to practice when you're feeling close to your baseline and calm so that they're easier to turn to when you're feeling that low hit. There are lots of things that work for different people, so it might be trial and error - largely you're looking at relaxation techniques, distraction from the source of the distress, and/or community support.

You Can Rely On The Community!

It is ok to ask for help! You can ask people for reassurance, directly ask for feedback, or even just talk over how you feel with other creators and find out how they're handling things. Sometimes just knowing you're not alone and that your feelings are real, valid, and matter can be a real boon - that's why I'm here, spending a couple of hours putting all of this into words as best as I can for you all. I've felt this cycle too many times, but the more I talk about it with other fic writers the more I feel we are connected and that I'm not just losing my marbles over nothing~

We are human, we have emotions - strong ones, remember? - and there's nothing wrong with that at all!

There is nothing wrong with having emotions and experiencing them!

Knowing When To Step Away

If you know you're more likely to have a swift drop from lack of quick feedback, it's a great idea to plan to step away from socials as soon as you're done. Have an activity planned, or do it all write before bed so you can switch off and go to sleep. Turn off those notifications so you aren't fussing over each one of them as they come in and don't go back for a while.

Allow a realistic amount of time to pass for people to see and engage with your work before you worry it is invisible!

The Next Shiny Idea

Conversely, if you're feeling too much of a creative itch, then as soon as you're done sharing move right on to starting the next project. Let the initial surge of energy from completing and sharing something be the driving force to kickstart the next great adventure! That way you're thinking more about the new work, the sparkling allure of a fresh idea, rather than fixating on the success of the last.

Cashing in on that adrenaline rush to make a good head-start can boost you right to that early feedback stage too, then if you're really lucky when you hit the first drop-off you'll have the positive engagement from the last work to boost you back up, so in some ways you're overlaying your graphs to balance them out with each other.

Naturally this only works if you have the time and energy to do so. It's also important to know when to take breaks to avoid burning out.

General Mood Boosting Ideas

These might not work for everyone, but here are some things to try when you're in one of those lows. A lot of this may be trial and error and knowing yourself best, so treat this as a few things that may or may not be effective rather than Lia's Super Snake Oil Cure For Everything (you have to buy that from me separately, it's super expensive but it is delightfully cherry and cinnamon flavoured~)

Check in on your basic needs. Drink, food, meds (if applicable), sleep/nap, caffeine (if you usually have it), shower/bath/hygiene needs (even if just a quick freshen up it's better than nothing), fresh air/outside time (if possible), exercise/physical movement (if you're able to), social needs (can be in person or online, any social interaction/support)

Music can be a powerful mood tool. Sometimes it's cathartic to listen to music that matches your current mood, but other times it is better to listen to music with the mood you want to feel.

Media from the fandom, like the book/film/game/etc that you're making fanworks for - return to the thing that inspired you to create and remember all the things that you loved about it in the first place.

Look at other fanworks but be very cautious! Do this for inspiration, to look at things you do and don't like in other pieces, but do not do this if it will be likely to cause a mood drop for you.

Do something different and change up your routine. Something entirely new or something you haven't done for a while.

Try something small, not connected to a large piece. A few sketches, doodles, make a meme, write a few short lines of dialogue or a brief scene. Share something with far lower stakes for a little boost.

Talk to others in the creative community and have a bit of fun, maybe try some games together, whatever you like!

I'm Not A Creative, How Can I Help?

This also counts for creatives who want to support each other, too! Of course I will put the caveat that I do understand that not everyone is comfortable visibly interacting with spice and that's fine~

Drop a like or kudos if you enjoyed the piece, it takes a second and means the world~

Leaving a comment, even a couple of silly words of "I loved it" is great!

Leaving a longer comment, picking out your favourite parts? That is the kind of boost that lasts weeks darlings it really does.

Sharing the work is also a big boost, whether publicly or privately to friend/fan groups, but especially when sharing art/images please share the link with it not just the image or a screenshot~ let people find and appreciate the artist.

Follow or Subscribe or Turn on notifications if you really want to see more of their work, then you can interact sooner and give that much needed boost~

Try to be patient, especially with longer or higher effort works. Expressing excitement is a boost, but just be careful you're not putting too much pressure on the creator. We do have things going on behind the screen that can delay our plans at times.

Consider dropping an interaction on something else, or check in on how they're doing in general - a little kindness outside of just the works being produced can be a boost too!

The Grand Finale of the Rollercoaster

Thank you for staying with me to the end darlings, I know this was likely a bit of an emotional ride, but please do drop in some comments or reblogs with the other things you experience and how you handle the emotional whirlwind of being a fan creator. Always remember, you are valued for more than just what you can produce, your works are adored but the person behind them is worth so much more and always will be. Look after yourselves, I love you dearly~

[karatam]

Top 5 video essays. Go!

oh this is such an interesting questions hmmmmmmmm

(my problem is that I'm an idiot who has not maintained a playlist or anything of my faves, which I'm going to do starting now lmao)

not in any particular order, though I ended up with more than 5:

Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs by Folding Ideas. Does a great job at explaining what they are and how they work, and particularly how they don't work. Talks about the toxic culture that surrounds them and now they're often just scams. I've rewatched it twice.

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 by hbomberguy. Starts off as a light-hearted look into who made that ubiquitous sound effect. Goes right off the deep end into the teeming insanity of the liar at the centre of it all. Incredible and utterly unhinged.

Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery by Defunctland. Related to #2 in general idea, but totally different in execution. Starts off by trying to find who composed a short little jingle used by the Disney Channel. Ends up a study of being an artist and what that means. I cried.

Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History by Defunctland. A truly interesting look at the history of the management of queues at amusement parts, culminating in the FastPass, for better or worse.

The Church Play Cinematic Universe by Jenny Nicholson. Not a video essay like some others on this list, but simply one of the most entertaining 80 minutes I've ever spent. A weird church puts on incredibly elaborate plays based on existing IP by twisting every story into a christmas or easter play.

The Rise, Lies, & Demise of Jan Hendrik Schön by BobbyBroccoli. Actually a three part series about a man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize in physics.

The Bob Emergency: a study of athletes named Bob by Jon Bois. Another two-parter. This is exactly what it says on the tin. It looks at the rise and fall of the number of athletes named Bob.

Into The Omegaverse: How a Fanfic Trope Landed in Federal Court by Lindsay Ellis. Truly batshit, truly incredible. Everyone needs to watch this at least once.

The Failure of Victorious and The End of Victorious by Quinton Reviews. These are a combined 13.5 hours about a show that I only kind of watched. And yet I was fascinated.

An appropriately unhinged recap of Pretty Little Liars by Mike's Mic. Like above, a truly batshit recap of a batshit show that I didn't really watch. Honestly it's more fun when you haven't seen it, because every new plot point is like being hit in the head by a baseball bat.

I Debunked the Entire Manosphere by munecat. A terrifying but funny examination of that part of the internet that I've been trying very hard to avoid.

The Making of Horizon Zero Dawn by noclip. One of my favourite games and a very interesting look at the process of bringing a video game from pitch to end product.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hi M, how are you? Coming after the high of Shogun's yesterday's win at the Emmy's made me wonder if you have a favourite historical movie or tv show that is underrated or in the category more-people-should-watch-this? Hopefully you indulge in this type of movie. 😊

For example, for me, one such movie is "Master and Commander: The Far side of the World" :brilliant ensemble cast all across the board, good chemistry between the main leads, engaging story, very good soundtrack, fx that still hold, 99% hystorically accurate 😂 but despite this not many have heard or watched this movie.

Have a nice day!

P.S. can't believe that tomorrow the last episode of AYS will air 😭.

Hi @shimako! Sorry for answering your question late, but I postponed it because I kept trying to think of a list. And honestly, I saw the words historical drama and forgot the underrated part so this is a bit of a disaster, but I'll make it work. Let's just say this is an incomplete list of tv shows that had an impact on me at the time and ages that I had when I watched them. And you'll see that I barely remember the plot, but I sort of know how I felt.

1. Rome

Is this underrated? Hell no! But perhaps in today's age of tv, a lot of people have forgotten about that show. Only two seasons, but it was among the first batch of prestige tv in the middle of the 2000s. I liked it so much that it made go to the bookstore and buy a book about Caesar. If I went through my Egypt phase in middle school, then my Ancient Rome period came in high school.

2. The Borgias

At the time of its runtime, I think it was pretty big. Although I don't think it won many awards. I also remember it being used as an example on scholarly papers about Hollywood using Eastern and Central European studios because of cheap labor and good locations. Budapest and Prague can replace Florence, lol.

The Borgias was naughty. And it had Jeremy Irons who is a fantastic actor in my opinion. Eventually they actually leaned heavily into the siblings relationship which I thought was daring. They went there 👀. And the costumes were so beautiful!.

3. The Tudors

I remember this show through the eyes of a 13-14 year old that developed a massive crush on the actor portraying Henry the VIII. This was like the rock'n'roll version of the story. And it was sexy. A bit over the top. A stepping stone for some actors that would become a lot more famous in the years to come. I think it was on HBO so probably not underrated at the time, but mostly forgotten nowadays.

4. Versailles

I can't remember if it's French or they talk in English. But it was lots of fun. And really gay. They didn't stay away from that. That's all I remember, but give it a try.

5. Taboo

This is that show with a really brooding Tom Hardy who remains like that throughout the story. But if you're interested in 1800s London and England's imperialist plan and its effects on colonized territories, this might be it.

6. Babylon Berlin

I don't know if this fits into the list, but it is a great portrayal of 1920s Berlin. A period in which artistic freedom and experimentation was at its height, but also juxtaposed with political unrest, creating this environment that would lay the ground for the rise of the fascist party. It's a german show, an HBO production and I like that it's not glamourized. You can see it in their clothes, their hygiene habits, their visible sweat and run down outfits they wear in clubs. It feels real.

7. Black Sails

I first heard of this when I wanted to watch more Toby Stephens movies/series but I almost stayed away because it was a Michael Bay production. Black Sails is so smart. At first, it might lure in the wrong audience, even based on the first trailer. It looks like a pirate show full of action sequences and machismo. And then you actually watch it and it flips that exact narrative. It is a direct critique of imperialism. It is also such a good case for any film and gender & queer studies analysis. But more than that, what really sealed the deal for me in what is considered a grade B series with grade B actors, is the meta-textual discourse on storytelling. It's about creating those pirate legends, of creating narratives to protect themselves against the empire. And all that is unfolded through brilliant lines of dialogue. It still remains a 10/10 tv show for me and the actual underrated one.

[fazedlight]

Fandom creators tag game

Thank you @waytooinvested and @fabulousglitch for the tag!

1. What sort of content do you create, and what is the thing you’ve made that you’re most proud of?

Proudest fic - There are a few I tend to choose from, but right now it's Even Though You're Kryptonian

Fanvid - My Rise vid

2. What fandom(s) do you create for?

Supercorp. (And a very tiny amount of Dansen and soon Rojarias.)

3. What is your current favourite ship (or brotp if you prefer), and how controversial is it?

Supercorp!! I don't think it's a controversial ship, lol.

4. For your answer to question 3, are they canon?

They are to me 😌

5. What was your first fandom, and how old were you?

My first obsession (and still greatest love) was Xena. I started watching the show a few episodes into season 1, when I was 6 years old. It was very formative.

That said, I didn't really get involved in any fandom communities until Supercorp (in early 2022).

6. What is your most unhinged fandom creation to date?

I don't think I get super unhinged, but as a pilot I did like creating this dumb incorrect quote.

7. Do you remember what started you off creating fandom content, and if so, what was it?

I was getting frustrated at not being able to find certain types of fics, and it struck me that... I was allowed to write my own.

8. Do you let people you know in real life see your fandom creations?

Yup! My partner read my first two fics in support, and several of my IRL friends have read at least one of my fics because I didn't have the good sense to keep that information to myself when I was getting started. It's mortifying lol. But my friends are very cool people.

9. How do you feel about fanworks of fanworks? Has anyone ever made something based on a thing you made?

Fanworks of fanworks are amazing!!! I've been incredibly lucky to have that happen three times (post), and gotten asked for permission for a different continuation and a podfic that may eventually happen.

10. What feeling do you most often try to evoke with your creations?

Angst. Longing. Bits of compassion too.

11. Has someone ever paid your work a compliment (in any form) that has stuck with you, and what was it?

I love each and every one of my commenters ❤️

Honestly, the compliments that stick with me most are "I came back to reread this" or "this idea is still living rent-free in my head" type comments. I think that's what all writers and artists want - to feel that their art lasted in someone's mind beyond the first time seeing it.

12. What’s your favourite thing someone else has made that you’ve seen in the last 24 hours (and link it if you can find it again!)

Technically it was more than 24hrs ago but this art by @awaitingrain is so fucking cute!!

13. Give a small sneak preview of something you’re working on right now (eg a couple of sentences of fic from a WIP, a gif set theme, a small piece of a larger picture, whatever you feel happy to share)

I have a ficlet (that's getting out of control), here's a snippet:

Lena was cozying into the warmth of Kara’s body, when Lena spoke. “I’m thinking of visiting my mother’s house soon,” she said shyly. “I want to find out more about her. Where I came from.”

“That sounds lovely,” Kara said softly.

“Do you want to come with me?” Lena asked.

Kara hesitated.

14. Have you ever seen/read anything made by the person who tagged you? If so, what was it and what was your favourite thing about it? (pick a favourite if there are several)

Both of them are on my reading list 👀

15. Do you leave comments on fandom works, and if so how would you describe your comment style?

Some of my comments are very simple, some of my comments are very long. I've tried to get more consistent about commenting ever since starting to write, because I know how important it is. Unfortunately, I also read a lot less now that I'm writing more.

16. How many works in progress do you currently have? Will you finish them all?

I have 5 WIPs! I'm very confident I'll finish them all.

17. what’s the longest it’s ever taken you to finish a fandom project?

I guess my worldkiller Kara fic took a bit over 3 months, though part of that was spacing with the Supercorp Big Bang.

I tend to write fast. One of the things I'm actually trying to do is slow down to fill out the story a bit more.

18. Describe the thing you made most recently in a way that is technically true, but also completely misleading. Link the thing if it’s published!

Lena has a bad day in the lab (Clockwork).

19. Do you ever engage with fanworks for a fandom you’re not in? Which one(s) and how did you get into it?

I totally engage in fanart from other fandoms that cross my dashboard, particularly korrasami. I don't tend to read fanfic of stuff I haven't engaged in, though.

20. Recommend a fan work from your fandom to your followers

This fanvid is probably my favorite in the entire fandom.

Suggested tag list, but there are no rules here, follow your heart.

A mutual you have never actually spoken to but think seems cool - oh there are so many of these!! I am tagging @mssirey who I don't think I've had a proper convo with yet

The most recent person whose content you engaged with (eg read a fic, reblogged art, whatever form you feel best fits) - @thealieninhiding (though by the time I finish this very long post it might be someone else lol)

Someone whose content you saw via tags/reblogs and you followed them because of it - @jadedloverart!

Someone in your fandom that you think makes cool things - @ekingston

Someone in a different fandom that you think makes cool things - tagging @thatonebirdwrites who makes korrasami stuff too

Someone you always tag on things like this - I'm not sure there's someone I always tag but I'll pick @nottawriter as one of the people I frequently tag when I do these things

Someone you have never tagged before - @rebellionbear have I tagged you before?? you are cool so I am tagging you!

Someone you would like to get to know better - @femslashhistorian

Someone who makes art you like - @awaitingrain along with others above!

Someone who writes fics you like - @luthordamnvers along with others above!

[chaosincurate]

My top 40 albums

Find out more about the albums and my thoughts on them below!

So I've been gone a little while, and part of that just comes from demotivation from a feeling that the work I'm putting in is going to waste, at least in the way I'm doing it, but most of it was the fact I was doing this. Turns out listening to about 50 albums and making a top 40 out of them isn't a quick done-in-a-month project. Whodathunk?

Sidebar: Anyway, I'll get into the write-ups in just a second, but I want to establish something first: this list is very subjective and one of the most obvious ways that shows itself is in regard to the ages of these albums. I grew up in the 00s and 10s and generally find it difficult to really connect with a lot of highly acclaimed and influential releases from before then. I never got into The Beatles all that much, I don't get the hype around Pet Sounds, and Nico & The Velvet Underground largely underwhelmed me. I don't doubt the artistry, I just feel like a lot of that music is very of a time that I have no real connection to, so it always ends up being a very analytical listen as opposed to one where I am just enjoying the album. Because of that, the albums on this list skew newer. A lot newer. I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not saying "old music bad" by excluding so many of them. It's a me thing. Anyway, onto the list!

40. Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

Genre: Emo Alternative-Rock Highlights: Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On a Bad Bet, I Don't Care, What a Catch, Donnie

For me, this album comes across as a funeral for the emo scene of the 00s. Shortly after this, Fall Out Boy would go on hiatus and haven't been the same since in my humble opinion, Paramore would go on to absolutely kill it with a shiny new sound, Panic! At the Disco would become a one-man ego trip, and My Chemical Romance released what is to this day their last album. All that being said, this doesn't come across as somber. Yes, there is a little angst, there's an acknowledgement of the unfairness of it all, hell, there's even a few guests making things awkward with their self-destructive depression. But despite it all, you get the impression that there is something to celebrate here.

39. Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

Genre: Indie Rock Highlights: 505, Fluorescent Adolescent

Any album that has 505 on it is gonna be a good one in my book. There's a reason it's a fan favourite. It perfectly balances the depiction of fawning anticipation with the need to keep things interesting enough that the listener can actually get to the payoff. It's immaculate, but that isn't all that the album has to offer.

Throughout the whole album, there's a little added complexity where the rawness of their debut once was, and sure, I prefer the debut, but it makes this a distinct enough experience that you aren't going to constantly feel like you'd rather listen to your preferred album, which I find is a trap that many young artists end up falling into. It still keeps a lot of what made the debut so exciting though, which is also a virtue, as much as I do love a lot of their later experimentation.

38. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

Genre: Glam Rock Highlights: Moonage Daydream, Hang on to Yourself, Starman

There are a lot of reasons this is a must-listen for any prospective or established rock fan, and the quality isn't even the main one in my opinion. Yes, this album is fantastic - so fantastic in fact that I had a tough time picking just a few highlights - but it's an album that, whether it hits for you or not, will tell you so much about what you do and don't like in the broad umbrella genre that is rock music. That trait is a result of the sheer amount of early exploration and pioneering Bowie does on this record. It's all close enough that it feels like a uniform experience, but you've got early templates for the all-out anthemic rock sounds with the likes of Moonage Daydream, a more dynamic, yet still anthemic style with Starman, the rock ballad of Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, and the early punk stylings of Hang on to Yourself. It makes for a great beginners guide to rock music, or simply further vindication and understanding from more experienced listeners who may just have a blind spot with Bowie.

And all of that upside comes in a rock opera package with a loose but coherent story.

37. Sampha - Lahai

Genre: Alternative R&B Highlights: Suspended, Spirit 2.0, Only

If you put a gun to my head and told me I could only use one word to describe this album, that word would probably be 'thoughtful'. Fortunately though, there's no gun to my head, so I'll expand on that.

First, the lyricism consistently comes across as mature and enlightened in the most humble way possible. It's similar to the Kendrick album he featured on in that way: Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. It reads as someone taking your hand and calmly guiding you through difficulty in life, as opposed to a self-indulgent lecture, and it's very easy to get something wrong and have a well-intentioned message come across as the latter if you aren't very thoughtful about your approach.

Then there are the instrumentals, which I've described before as something akin to a living thing. There is so much relaxed intricacy to the sound that all weaves together so naturally that it sounds like a melodic breath of some beautiful fantasy creature that you can't fully understand. It's what makes writing about it so difficult: it's got to be all about the emotion it evokes, not how it's evoked, because understanding how it works is both difficult and feels like dissecting a magnificent creature.

36. Denzel Curry - Melt My Eyez, See Your Future

Genre: Conscious Hip Hop Highlights: Walkin', X-Wing

If you've ever tried to dive in at the deep end of a genre that you've not listened to much of before, you'll know how I felt listening to this for the first time when it came out a couple years ago. To be clear, this isn't the most hip that ever did hop or anything, but it's a pure enough form of the genre that I didn't really know how to really approach it outside of the very surface level interaction of listening to it and either liking the album or not liking the album. Even individual tracks didn't stand out to me that much because I simply didn't speak the metaphorical language of this genre, so my feelings were essentially all vibes based. I bring that up to say that revisiting it with a little more experience under my belt made me worried that I wouldn't like it as much this time. As you can tell, I had nothing to worry about.

Melt My Eyez, See Your Future is a fantastic album about continuing to mature while comfortably into adulthood, exploring trauma, and criticizing various elements of culture that made growth difficult. It's intelligent, thoughtful, and the touch of psychedelia in the sound of the album pairs incredibly well with the lyrics about self-realization.

35. IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance

Genre: Art Punk Highlights: Never Fight a Man with a Perm, Samaritans, Television

Joy as an Act of Resistance is exactly what the title suggests and a little more: a punk album about how, despite everything, joy is very powerful. There is a particularly refreshing angle to that though, as throughout the album there are moments where it becomes explicit that this is from the perspective of someone who has felt pressure to live up to patriarchally masculine ideals of stoicism, and some focus is given to how that is harmful to men beyond the simplistic buzzwords that get thrown around so we don't have to actually talk about it. It's rare and important that men are told, as men, that they can and should express all emotions, including joy, and the fact that it's purpose beyond the personal benefit is so clearly laid out is the cherry on top.

To be clear though, this isn't a pushover punk record, not by any means. The vibe of the album is well summed up in the line "this snowflake's an avalanche". A bold statement on how an emotionally enlightened community can become a powerful force for good, especially en masse.

34. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

Genre: Indie Rock, Psychedelic Rock Highlights: Cornerstone, Crying Lightning, The Jeweller's Hands

The first sign of real experimentation from Arctic Monkeys was one that disappointed me personally on first listen, but eventually grew on me, with the leisurely pace that most of this album is moving at. It's a really laid-back listen for the most part, one that invites the total opposite experience to that which they were - and, arguably in the UK, still are - known for. Where they once kept it fairly light on the thoughtful aspects in favour of an adrenaline-pumping, raw rock sound, they were now placing intricacy, both in songwriting and lyricism, at the forefront.

As I alluded to, it took some getting used to, I was a fan of the fast-paced Arctic Monkeys of their debut and sophomore attempts first and foremost, but now that it's finally clicked, I can appreciate the boldness on both an analytical level, and an emotional one.

33. Paramore - This Is Why

Genre: Post-punk Highlights: Figure 8, Running Out Of Time, This Is Why

This is why I love Paramore. They have such a creative integrity about them that is on full display here. While their contemporaries have turned into desperate trend-chasers or cheap nostalgia acts, Paramore keep reinventing themselves with a sense of sincere curiosity and adventure, while also nailing every single sound they've attempted. This newest sound is a natural progression from their initial sound almost, taking the maturity of their albums post-punk-sound and combining it with elements of their pop-punk roots, adding some extra musical complexity, and coming out with a post-punk album that feels like such a natural fit that in retrospect it seemed inevitable.

But all of that is pretty conceptual. It tells you where it sits in Paramore's discography, and that of their 00's pop-punk contemporaries, but not how the album holds up on it's own. Naturally, with it being on a list like this, I'm going to say it holds up well, but this is a question of why, not if, and I think there are plenty of reasons. First I'll start with Hayley Williams' lyrics, which are, as they have been for a while, refreshingly emotionally mature. Then there's the willingness to try out some really unique guitar sounds and effects for a band this popular. They really push the instrument further than most things you expect to chart. I'm trying to keep this brief, so I'll aim my last compliment towards the vocals, particularly on Figure 8. There's such a visceral strain that makes it hit so hard.

32. Michael Jackson - Thriller

Genre: Dance Pop Highlights: Billie Jean, Thriller, Beat It

Is a write-up really necessary for this one? It's held in high regard as one of the best pop albums - if not the best - and it is a well-earned title. This album is stacked. There are the three highlights I've listed above, sure, but I feel like it'd be sacrilegious not to mention the likes of P.Y.T., Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Baby Be Mine... Basically anything but The Girl Is Mine feels like it warrants a mention here. It's all Thriller, no filler. If you haven't listened to it, what are you even doing reading a music blog for music recommendations? Go listen to it. Learn simple addition before learning about the niche shit that'll never come up in your daily life. And when you've done that, you can thank me and we can talk about stuff that's a little more niche. Seriously though, how haven't you heard this yet? Don't they play it when you come out of the womb?

Anyway, yeah, good album, Billie Jean is a masterpiece (and has aged very well considering we now know that he was more likely to sleep with the child than the mother), but you probably knew that already.

31. Arcade Fire - Funeral

Genre: Chamber Pop, Indie Rock Highlights: Neighborhood #1: Tunnels, Wake Up, Rebellion (Lies)

I don't think I've ever known an album to be so against the idea of you listening to songs from it individually. Don't get me wrong, I've heard better album experiences, more cohesive, better paced, more highly conceptual albums, but something about this album screams "don't you dare listen to a song off this thing. It's all or nothing". I really I can't even put my finger on why, exactly, but what I can tell you is that it makes a write-up significantly harder. Usually I can draw on my long history of casual listens to individual tracks to pick out highlights and to get a more intimate understanding of the sound of an album, but here, I've only got a handful of excellent experiences with the album that were, frankly, pretty spread out to go off.

What I can offer using that experience though, is that this album embodies a certain emotion really well, and that's the feeling of running away from home after the situation there has become untenable. It's not really something I'd call an explicit theme, but there are moments where it feels like a bittersweet nostalgia, like the feeling of someone describing a video game as a sanctuary from early familial turmoil. It's a focus on something warm in the blistering cold of a hard life.

30. King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

Genre: Prog Rock, Art Rock Highlight: 21st Century Schizoid Man

45 minutes, 5 songs. That should give you some idea of how this album sounds. Each song is it's own sprawling, epic masterpiece. It spends minutes that would typically be spent on a song or two simply teasing you with playful mid-song solos that feel incomplete, only to then give you the full picture you got used to in the beginning in a satisfying explosion, bringing with it a new drive to propel the songs over the finishing line. There are of course variations on that formula to add the slight freshness required to keep these five tracks from getting stale, but regardless, you will need to approach this with patience, and if you can do that, it'll reward you for it tenfold.

29. Paramore - After Laughter

Genre: New Wave, Synthpop Highlights: Hard Times, 26, Idle Worship

I have a lot of love for After Laughter. It was one of the first albums I remember actively listening to on it's release, and was a superb example for me of a band radically changing their style in a way that feels sincere following a wave of albums that seemed like cashgrabs to a 16-year-old me. And I liked it plenty back then, sure, but it's grown on me massively in the years since then.

The way the whole album appears to be built around the concept of smiling through pain, putting on a happy act when you feel like your world is crumbling around you... It's awe-inspiring. I've mentioned it before, but the way you are pulled into that groove in the first 5 songs on the album, getting comfortable with the idea of happy pop songs with a darker underbelly, 26 comes in and absolutely blindsides you with a rare moment of lyrical-musical harmony as Hayley Williams sings about her regrets surrounding the pessimism she espoused and bought into, and how she feels trapped by it in the present. It's brutal. And then, while you're sitting with that, you're thrust right into the peppiest song on the album yet in Pool, which leaves you feeling the exact emotions the album is built around. I caught myself thinking "Wow, that's really fucked me up, but this is a really upbeat song, I'm not in the right headspace here, I gotta cheer up". I don't know if it's intentional, and the fact that the A-side ends on 26 when listening on vinyl leads me to believe it wasn't, but it's powerful all the same.

Other than that though, as much as I've seen opinions to the contrary, I believe this album is remarkably consistent. I even love the experimental spoken word track No Friend. It also happens to be an excellent showing of the band's versatility. It doesn't get much further from Riot than this, and it still just seems so effortless for them. Like a second nature. It's crazy. This is why Paramore are the sleeper GOATs of the 2000s pop punk movement.

28. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Genre: Indie Rock Highlights: When the Sun Goes Down, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, The View From the Afternoon

The first effort from Arctic Monkeys being this good was a blessing and a curse all at once. It feels harsh to say they peaked with their first album, but in this case, I mean it as a positive. I still love the newer stuff from them, even their very divisive most recent album The Car, but the energy of this one can't be denied. It takes you by the wrist and charges forward at full pelt, prepared to drag you along if you can't keep up, and only really gives you a couple breathers.

It's because of that pace though, that one of my favourite aspects of the album often gets overlooked (even by myself initially), and that's the lyrics of the album. Now, sure, they aren't pure poetry or anything, and Alex Turner does go on to improve in that regard, but it all sticks to the theme of a young Brit's night out, and paints the picture fantastically, with all the awkwardness and charm that comes along with it.

27. Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch

Genre: Anti-Folk, Chamber Pop Highlights: Us, Chemo Limo, Ode to Divorce

I've written a lot about this album since starting this blog about 18 months ago, and I'm frankly running out of new things to say. If you want my in-depth write up about the album, I did one towards the end of last year, but to keep it simple, the highlight for me is the really cool and unique lyrical style in which Spektor phrases simple things in a strange enough way that you're forced to actually engage with the simple truths that often get abstracted by modern life. She doesn't say something you're likely to have heard before, like "people don't care about you as much as you do", she says "people are just people like you". The former is used in such a way that it's easy to ignore based on how people have used it before (after all, some people just are judgemental, which isn't always acknowledged). But when Spektor says "people are just people like you", it's prompting you to think about yourself acting in the way you expect others to, and how you wouldn't be so unkind. It makes it more powerful because you actually have to think about the type of person you'd have to be to judge someone so harshly, and how their opinion ultimately shouldn't matter to you.

26. black midi - Schlagenheim

Genre: Experimental Rock Highlights: bmbmbm, Of Schlagenheim, Ducter

When I say this album is incredibly overwhelming, understand I mean it in the best way possible. There is so much going on at any given moment, and so little time to wait for the next moment, that it took me several listens before I felt I could even truly grasp it. And usually when I say that it comes from a lack of experience with the genre, but while I hadn't heard anything quite like black midi, I have been a fan of rock and rock-adjacent music for most of my life. It's just so much album that it took a while for me to digest it all. And even now, every listen feels fresh because it's so difficult to memorize every aspect of it.

Another crazy thing about this album is how it doesn't even feel like your typical balance of intensity and intricacy, which is probably a massive reason for that overwhelm I mentioned. It's not less intricate in favour of intensity or vice versa, they just turn both of them up to 11 and expect you to get with it, and I have a lot of respect for that approach.

25. MF DOOM - MM.. FOOD

Genre: Hip-Hop Highlights: Deep Fried Frenz, Rapp Snitch Knishes, Kookies

If you want the delectable dessert of DOOM's discography, dare I say it doesn't get more delicious than the divine rhymes of MM.. FOOD. Maybe Madvillainy is more of a main course meal; the mandatory musical meat that you must make your way through first, but the flavourful fun follows shortly after for me. MM.. FOOD is a concept album, using food metaphors throughout, and that sounds like a really cheesy idea, but it's surprisingly satiating in practice, and is the ingredient that really elevates the album to point where, to me, it's a classic.

24. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds From Another Planet

Genre: Dream Pop, Indie Rock Highlights: The Body Is a Blade, Boyish, Road Head

What's not to love about Japanese Breakfast? The instrumentals never failing to perfectly replicate even the most specific of moods, the evocative and often wise lyricism, the soothing vocals... This album in particular is often verging on meditative, with even most of the upbeat songs having a comforting quality to them that makes them work as a late night lullaby. Even the one song that I'd consider a poor choice for a sleep playlist, 12 Steps, feels like a rock song in a fluffy jumper. It's got all the elements you'd expect from something abrasive, but performed in a way that makes it sound sweet and cozy instead.

As for the wise lyrics I mentioned, it doesn't get much better than The Body Is a Blade in Japanese Breakfast's discography. It's about the idea of perseverance, basically, but in a way that feels very passive, like all the effort the protagonist can muster is put into keeping it together and the rest of their life is on autopilot. It's excellent and well worth a listen. It also stands on it's own if you don't feel like listening to the whole album.

Try not to get so righteous

About what's fair for everyone

Find what's left in you

Channel something good

23. Björk - Homogenic

Genre: Electronic, Art Pop Highlights: Bachelorette, Hunter

On Homogenic, Björk creates a balanced, maximalist electronic soundscape that lends itself to repeated sessions of critical listening, which serves as a backdrop for her passionate, emotion-filled vocal performances. It's an immersive style that really needs to be felt and not described for it to really be understood, but suffice it to say that if you're a fan of music that rewards focused listening, and are not averse to electronic sounds, you'll find something to love here.

22. Jeff Buckley - Grace

Genre: Singer-Songwriter, Alternative Rock Highlights: Hallelujah, Lover You Should Have Come Over

The one and only record from one of music's most overlooked great artists, Jeff Buckley, is a beautiful and thoughtful album. An expression of pain from a tender soul, communicated by way of one of the most beautiful voices to grace a rock-adjacent sound atop instrumentals that at once accept flaws as part of the process and demand perfection to the greatest extent possible without losing the human touch.

21. Alvvays - Alvvays

Genre: Indie Pop Highlights: Atop a Cake, Red Planet, Next of Kin

The first and (in my opinion) worst of Alvvays' albums still gives me enough hits of dopamine from their euphoria-laced sound to make it near the halfway point of this list. The only thing that is really lacking in this album for me, which they will go on to address in future listens, is the rough edges in their production (nothing quite seems to pop like it does later on) and the monotony. Luckily though, the one tone they did run with was one that I absolutely love, making listens great fun regardless.

For more of my thoughts on this album (and the other Alvvays albums we'll get to), check out my Alvvays discography post I made last year! It was an early one of mine, so it might need some revision at some point, but most of what I say in there should still stand.

20. Black Country, New Road - For the First Time

Genre: Experimental Post-Punk Highlights: Sunglasses

As someone who enjoys long songs but short albums, this is almost my dream. 6 songs over a 40 minute runtime. It's not quite around the 35 minute runtime that tends to make me love an album, but it's damn close, and those extra five minutes or so are hardly felt anyways with patient behemoths of songs being held down with an awkward post-punk groove you will have come to expect if you're familiar with the 2020s wave of British post-punk.

I've spoken a lot about how debuts can often sound a little unrefined in their sound, and usually that takes on a slightly negative but totally acceptable connotation, but here they lean in fully and it makes that rawness one of the best elements of the sound. From the album's title, to the theme of immaturity and childhood popping up on occasion throughout the album, to even the jazzy sound that sounds somewhat improvised, they don't shy away from how far they have to go, and that makes for a far more enjoyable experience.

19. Radiohead - OK Computer

Genre: Alternative Rock Highlights: Paranoid Android, Karma Police, Let Down

This is the second time I've had real trouble picking highlights for the album, because practically everything here is pure alternative rock gold. Paranoid Android and Karma Police were mandatory, sure, but beyond that it is almost literally the whole album (minus Fitter Happier for reasons obvious to the masses of people who've heard this album) begging for a spot there. Ultimately, I chose Let Down, with the deciding factor simply being that the lines "One day I am gonna grow wings // A chemical reaction // Hysterical and useless". There's a deeply mangled sense of hope within those lines, as if the sentiment is fighting itself. The crushing realism fighting with the spark of optimism, providing a counterpoint within a hopeful metaphor. One day, you may grow wings, but it's nothing more than a side effect of radiation, and they will be a useless deformation, not and escape.

I'm sure that I don't need to go over how great this album is. If you're a music fan on the internet, you already know that, or have at least heard something to that effect from another hyper-passionate fan, but if this has been a blindspot for you so far, I will be the 548th person to tell you: you need to listen to this album

18. Fall Out Boy - From Under the Cork Tree

Genre: Emo Pop-Punk Highlights: Dance, Dance, Sugar, We're Going Down, XO

This is quintessential emo pop punk. It's got the perfect blend of edge and catchiness that made that wave of music so compelling and divisive. As much as Fall Out Boy did essentially make the blueprint for that sound though, there is a uniqueness to them. The heavy emphasis on bass, constant musical shifts, and most of all Patrick Stump's soul-tinged vocals, all contribute to something that feels like more than a bland example of the genre.

On top of that, there is a perfect witty spite to the lyrics that are very rarely replicated by other bands, as much as they may have tried. When others would try, it often came across as bland woman-bashing which gave the movement as a whole a bad name as an especially misogynistic subculture. Now, I wouldn't dare take the stance that there was no misogyny to speak of, but if you take a look at the Mount Rushmore of the movement (My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Panic! At the Disco, and - most relevant to the topic at hand - Fall Out Boy), whenever there was woman-bashing, I for one always got the impression that it was about a single woman as opposed to women as a whole (with a couple notable exceptions from Panic! At the Disco with Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off, and Paramore, with Misery Business).

My general point about this album is that it is very good at toeing all the lines it needs to. It goes far enough to make you feel something, but not far enough that you forget that it's not that deep, all the while being targeted well enough that it doesn't feel like it's perpetuating misogyny despite often being about criticism of women.

17. Alvvays - Antisocialites

Genre: Indie Pop Highlights: Saved By a Waif, Plimsoll Punks, Hey

I listed two flaws in Alvvays' first outing earlier in this list: the monotony and the general vibe of being rough around the edges, which didn't work for their sound. Well I'm happy to report that neither of those things are an issue here. I still wouldn't exactly describe this album as diverse (although it's definitely plenty for a runtime of just over half an hour), but the euphoria factory sound is so refined in this one. It feels like my brain is having a summer water fight where it substituted water with dopamine and also it's raining dopamine. And it gets better. Boy do I love music.

As I mentioned in the write-up of their self-titled album, I made a post about Alvvays' discography if you want some more in depth thoughts about this album and their other two. I'll only plug it one more time, I promise.

16. My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Genre: Emo Pop-Punk Highlights: Ghost of You, Thank You for the Venom, I Never Told You What I Do for a Living

I could honestly just fill this write-up by getting the red string and push pins out and trying to string together the story of the album, deciphering what exactly is and isn't related to it, how the ones that are related progress the story, etc. but I don't feel especially qualified for that. I go through binges and fasts of My Chemical Romance, and do more fasting of this album than binging, so I don't have as much of a grasp on that as I'd like. That being said, the TL;DR is that the protagonist's wife dies, and he makes a deal with the devil to see her again after claiming the souls of 1000 evil people.

The music, for the most part, matches that grandiose, dark, theatrical concept perfectly, and manages to be a cathartic listen throughout, really giving as much intensity as possible to get you to that transcendent spot whilst not turning into sound sludge and (for most people) ruining the whole thing.

15. JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES

Genre: Experimental Hip-Hop Highlights: Burfict!, God Loves You, Kingdom Hearts Key

Combining Peggy's maximalist production with Danny Brown's batshit... Well his batshit everything, it's verging on perfection. It might not have been my favourite album of the year, but it has almost certainly been my most replayed. The album has a really infectious energy, is short enough that you can get a quick front-to-back listen in with time to spare for the sequel EP, and has some really funny bars as a cherry on top too, most of which are on one of the highlights I chose: God Loves You. That song is bar after bar of dirty bible double entendres and puns, and to this day some of the lines crack me up.

You can just hear the fun these guys are having making this album in every single verse, and it really helps sell the whole over-the-top vibe. It's an album made with the thought of "what happens if two technically excellent rap artists come together to shitpost?" and the answer is a hip-hop masterpiece.

14. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

Genre: Jazz Rap Highlights: King Kunta, Wesley's Theory, i

At this point I'd like to remind anyone reading this that it's my personal opinion and I'm not claiming any objectivity in it. And I'd also like to remind people I put this at least 86 spots higher than Apple Music did.

Onto the actual album though, it is, of course, incredible. It's the album that properly opened up the genre of hip-hop to me. Before I heard this I picked out the very occasional album, but had issues with it resonating with me. I still had issues afterwards, but they were the sort of thing that goes away with pure exposure.

So this album was huge for my musical exploration, but what makes it so good? Well, there are plenty of reasons and plenty of people talking about those reasons. It's an insightful description of how institutional racism effects the way black Americans respond to success and Kendrick gets very introspective to achieve that end, it's got an infectious jazzy style, the poem building throughout the album is a very useful thread in making it more cohesive and is exceptionally executed with every song feeling very relevant to the new lines that precede it... It's an exceptional album, and well worth a listen regardless of who you are.

13. Model/Actriz - Dogsbody

Genre: Dance-punk, Industrial Rock Highlights: Donkey Show, Mosquito, Crossing Guard

This feels a little dirty. Putting Dogsbody ahead of TPAB, not Dogsbody itself. Dogsbody feels downright filthy. I've spoken a lot about this album, and I always describe it as some variation on the explanation that it sounds like gay men doing BDSM. It's rough, a little scary in a thrilling sort of way, it's sexy, and it's fun. It even has the aftercare at the end. And also it's gay... Obviously...

It comes right out the gate at a million miles an hour too, with the first four songs being an amazing summary of the album's sound. If the first half of this album were an EP, it may well be my favourite EP of all time, but fortunately it doesn't end so soon, because while the rest of the album doesn't quite reach that same height for the remainder of it's runtime for me, there are still highlights to come, and a loose narrative that gets a beautiful resolution on Sun In. That narrative is one of an unrequited love within a very physical relationship. A one-sided emotional investment, which, of course, becomes toxic. The narrator relies on the sexual side of the relationship like a crutch, not quite giving them everything they need, but giving them enough that they don't mind the emptiness. The concept is executed via very heady and strange symbolism, but that is what I've managed to glean from it. I'll leave the rest of the analysis to you.

12. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Genre: sad girl indie Highlights: Chinese Satellite, Kyoto

If I'm being entirely honest, my favourite song from the album isn't in the highlights section. If you've heard the album, you already know what it is. I feel like recommending it outside of the context of the album, though, is placing it in a context in which it has one arm tied behind it's back. It should be little surprise that I'm talking about the closer here, it gives me chills every time it comes on now because it was such a glorious and powerful payoff to such a slow and serene album. The album didn't need a banger, but the contrast is what takes it from good to one of my favourite albums ever (my number 1 favourite at one point)

When listening to the album, it's clear why it inspired so many copycats. It's a sound that resonates with a dejected youth that often turns to sarcasm and humour when things feel especially hopeless. This is what extreme sadness sounds like to younger generations now: a sort of "yeah, that makes sense" mentality that comes with being constantly bombarded with negativity. It's not like you can be surprised things aren't going your way when very little in the world has ever seemed to. There's not much point in making a scene when everyone who can help you is convinced you're the fool in the play. And that also happens to resonate especially well with young women, who are constantly told to deny reality or accept their awful conditions. Of course, all marginalized groups get that to some extent, but it's usually in the form of denying that there is no systemic problem, or that in any individual instance it isn't informed by bigotry. In my experience, the denial that a negative thing even happened to someone is exceptionally rampant within misogyny specifically.

With all of that out of the way, though, I think that is much of the reason nothing hits quite like Punisher for me though. The resonant aesthetics are great, sure, but so often people copy the aesthetics they like without also integrating the meaning. On the surface, Phoebe Bridgers sings in a pretty rambly, conversational way, but if you pay attention, the actual thoughts beneath the aesthetics are impressively profound. The quick, funny, personable lines stick out on an aesthetic level, but fundamentally only serve as a seasoning. Whenever most other artists try the sad girl indie vibe, it comes off as hollow because they give all the seasoning and none of the actual food. Punisher, on the other hand, is a hearty, flavourful meal with everything you could ask for from this style of music and should not be overlooked.

11. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

Genre: Chamber Pop, Indie Pop Highlights: Paprika, Be Sweet, Savage Good Boy

I've already made a whole post about Jubilee (mostly Paprika though, to be honest), so I'll keep this relatively brief, but this album holds such a special place in my heart. It's clearly not in my top 10, but if you told me I could only listen to 5 albums ever again, this would be one of them. It's very strange to describe what makes this special though. I know it is something to do with it's relationship to joy, but it's not like it's a happy album. There are happy songs, for sure (Paprika, my beloved), but it's about 50/50 when it comes to happiness and sadness. I mean, all the happiness Paprika musters is entirely undone by the emotional wrecking ball that is In Hell, for starters.

I think what the relationship to joy is is a sort of impression you get listening to the album that there is happiness in even the most awful situations. Sometimes it may be deeply buried, but it feels as though this album urges you to keep digging in a very implicit way. It's not explicitly about you persevering, it's about Michelle Zauner persevering and the rewards she got for it. It doesn't push expectations on you, it doesn't assume to know what you're going through, what you're capable of, or what is best for you, it sort of sneakily lets you know "hey, it's an option to keep pushing through and staying positive. This is how it benefited me." And I think that is, in most cases, more powerful than a simple "keep going".

I lied about keeping it brief, but believe me, I tried to.

10. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

Genre: Jangle Pop Highlights: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, The Queen Is Dead, Bigmouth Strikes Again

Everything about this album screams indie pop masterpiece, from the driving drums on the opener and title track, to the back to back dour songs I Know It's Over and Never Had No One Ever, to some of the jangliest songs The Smiths have ever put out like The Boy With the Thorn In His Side, everything feels so classic and so influential. Even some of the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition are downright iconic. Asleep, Rubber Ring, Unloveable... All great. It feels almost as though they were destined to make a must-listen indie pop album and the gods bestowed them with some sort of artistic steroids to make that destiny manifest.

Chances are you've heard of The Smiths, and seeing as this album is just them at their best, it's hard to talk about it without getting too in-depth or too cursory, so I'll describe what makes The Smiths special for anyone who may have a blind spot there. Most of what they do is simply about excelling in the fundamentals of musicianship, with Morrissey being a spectacular lyricist, Johnny Marr being the best indie guitarist of all time, and bassist Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce on drums holding everything down well in the rhythm section to allow the other two legendary musicians to shine their brightest. That all makes for a great band, of course, but if it were just a bunch of really skilled musicians doing nothing special I don't think the band would have such status and staying power. The true value I see in The Smiths comes from the outsider vibe they portray, particularly within Morrissey's lyrics and vocal stylings. It is such a distinctive style that rarely gets mimicked very well, which has allowed them to remain unique, still retaining that outsider air about them while being popular enough to carry a torch for those outsiders on a wide scale without losing that exact power. That's what The Smiths are all about, and this album is the greatest example of that in their discography.

9. Everything Everything - Get To Heaven

Genre: Progressive Pop Highlights: To The Blade, Distant Past

I have a very strange relationship to this album. It's a relationship I do share with other albums, but not nearly to this extent. That relationship is defined by a retrospective lack of enthusiasm (although no lack of appreciation), but punctuated with an in-the-moment revelation every single time I listen to the album of just how much I loved it all along. No more intensely experienced was that exact dynamic than when I noticed that, by my album ratings, this album ended up on the shortlist for this very top 40. I wasn't antagonistic at all towards the prospect, just a little taken aback and half-expecting it to fall out of the top 40 pretty quickly. But as is always the case, I was swiftly corrected.

The album touches on all sorts of political and cultural strife in very abstract ways, but taken as a whole it is very much about the radicalization of a character into a terrorist organization. The narrative doesn't stick too close to that concept following the climax, but still remains tangentially and emotionally connected to political extremism and fear.

That narrative doesn't just stop at the lyrics being about political extremism and radicalization, the synthetic soundscape recalls the digital world where most of that radicalization takes place, and the occasionally confusing and cryptic execution of said lyrics mirrors the feelings of a young person getting whipped up into the chaotic, often nonsensical and contradictory frenzies of the right wing. It is very thorough in it's depiction of the process by which these people often come to do terrible things which makes for an incredible listen and I hope I've learned my lesson about forgetting that.

8. underscores - Wallsocket

Genre: Indietronica, Electropop, Indie Rock Highlights: Cops and robbers

I think now is a good time to quickly go over the two ways I've noticed I can adore an album: one of those ways is by an album seeming as though it couldn't have possibly been created by a person, even a group of people. As if it must have been passed down to the musician who claims ownership over it by some divine power. The other way is a clearly imperfect album where the imperfections somehow just make it even more lovable, because it could have only been made by a human. You'll see that dynamic throughout the list, but especially in the top 5.

This album is not close to perfect. It's a little erratic. underscores tries too much to maintain too much cohesion. Some of the lyrics are a little awkward. But somehow, none of that matters, it just adds to the album in a weird way, gives it a certain charm. That being said though, there is plenty to both love and appreciate too, such as the very online production which provides the vast majority of what little cohesion there is throughout the record, and the very diverse and strange subject matters that get touched on here. There's such a unique personality to the album that you can't help but recognize the humanity in it, and I think that's what makes my connection to this album so strong.

7. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

Genre: Emo Pop-Punk Highlights: Welcome to the Black Parade, I Don't Love You, Disenchanted

The Black Parade is undeniably the quintessential album of the movement and possibly even has a claim to the quintessential album of the era. I don't think there was a rock fan of the time that didn't know about My Chemical Romance, and I don't think there's a single person who was alive in it's hay day whose emotional dam could withstand the power of that G note. And that's the thing with My Chemical Romance (on this album especially): they are just so emotionally resonant. Whether that emotion is toxic anger and hatred, or whether it's joy, sadness, or the overwhelming nostalgia, you can't help but feel something in response to a Black Parade song.

As you are probably well aware at this point, the album isn't for everybody. It is very much a rock album and is very much sincere, and tends to actively go against the genre's typical clichés in some way. Gerard Way doesn't seem badass, and you probably won't feel badass listening to this album. It isn't really into glorifying moral and emotional shortcomings or even really accepting them. It is actively introspective, from the perspective of an awful man (one which seems to represent the typical macho and troubled-in-a-cool-way character that uninspired rock lyricists portray) facing death and losing hope at a shot of redemption, but who eventually, in my reading, attempts to face death with the grace and sincere love that was lacking in his life.

Many people write off this movement as hollow self-loathing (I even saw someone confidently compare Machine Gun Kelly's lyrics to My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy which was baffling to say the least), but you really do get what you give when it comes to the movement's big three (My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Paramore. Let's be real, Panic! have like two albums and no one can even agree which two)

6. David Bowie - ★

Genre: Experimental Rock Highlights: ★, Lazarus

You can't talk about this album without talking about the unfortunate death of one of music's greatest legends. I don't know how the death of the man David Jones was handled. I'm sure it was with great love, care, and no spared expense. But I do know that the superstar David Bowie went out on his own terms. Even when the album isn't explicitly about mortality, you feel the ghost of the man. It reads as though he's looking back on his life and his regrets, coming to terms with the fact that there will forever be unfinished business in his life.

It is enviable in a sense though. All of us have to die (for now), and that's always going to be painful to those around us, and ourselves in our approach. But not many of us get to make our own headstones. And that is exactly how I'd describe ★. A beautiful headstone over the grave of one of music's most influential figures. So if you can stand the morbidity of it, come and appreciate the craftsmanship, the ode to one's own life, and pay your respects. It really is an experience that I believe transcends personal tastes, even if the music itself doesn't appeal to you enough to revisit, the album as a unified project, I believe, is a universally affecting experience.

5. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

Genre: West Coast Hip-Hop Highlights: good kid, m.A.A.d city, Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst

There's one particular reason I love this album so much. Song for song it's very good, but maybe not top 5 for me. Thematically it's great, but far from something that'd resonate with me this much. The thing about this album that makes me love it this much is that it is an absolute masterclass in sequencing. Even with what I'd consider a noticeably flawed tracklist with a few songs that don't quite hit for me, there is no point where I was listening to this album and didn't feel very engaged.

The sequencing here appears to bend time, making you feel at the halfway point as if you've barely gotten started but somehow still been given almost an album's worth of thoughts already. And that might lead you to believe that it's overwhelming, but that is somehow not the case either. You'll need a few listens to properly take everything in, but it feels as though you're allowed to engage and disengage at will with the lyrics and concepts.

Essentially, my thoughts come down to the idea that as a collection of songs it's slightly lacking by the standards of a top 5 album and by the standards set by Kendrick himself, but it is redeemed and then some by the fact that it captures the essence of an album perfectly. If you don't typically listen to albums and don't understand what separates them from any old collection of songs, this album is the one I'll point to as an example of the exceptionality of the format. The flow of the album, the stories, the immersion... None of that can be matched.

4. black midi - Hellfire

Genre: Avant Prog Highlights: Sugar/Tzu, Welcome To Hell, The Race Is About To Begin

If you're looking for an intense, overwhelming-yet-satisfying listen, look no further than black midi, and Hellfire in particular. I've talked a lot about this album in the past, and I always go back to the first time I heard it and the same description: it felt like I was shot up to heaven to see the face of god and shot back down to earth. It went beyond your typical transcendent experience and into the territory where you start to feel you'll never be the same again.

Unfortunately, that faded with repeat listens as I've come to know these songs inside and out, but it remains an invigorating and awe-striking experience. The initial reaction can be put down to the breakneck speed of the music, with every instrument seemingly existing just to keep you struggling to keep up and wrap your head around their parts. The repeated experience, however, comes down to things like the lyrics and themes of the album. It gives listeners so much to dig into, and when you consider the lower-than-average runtime, it becomes truly impressive how densely packed this album is.

As the title would suggest, the album depicts all manner of evil, from fearmongering on the opener, to war on Welcome To Hell, to complex exploitation on Eat Men Eat, there is so much to explore within a cohesive package.

And somehow it was my third favourite album from that year

3. Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

Genre: Art Rock, Chamber Pop Highlights: Good Will Hunting, The Place Where He Inserted The Blade

The second album of the 2022 ten trifecta has a weirdly similar vibe to the first (that being the previous album, Hellfire), but if I were to describe the differences, the albums would be total opposites. Other than the fact it's hard to conceive of the process by which they were made, Hellfire goes at blazing speeds while AFUT pulls back, Hellfire channels chaos where AFUT goes for a more considered style, Hellfire makes it's points quickly and moves on but AFUT takes it's time to build it's narratives. And yet, I've scarcely seen a fan of one that isn't a fan of the other. It's a strange connection these two albums share, which makes it fitting that they are right beside eachother on this list.

Onto Ants From Up There specifically though, the album is defined by a simmering patience and desperation. Thematically depicting a relationship strained by distance, physical and emotional, but in which one side is dependent on the other. Of course, this relationship is bound to fall apart, and the album spirals into a hopeless angst fueled by regret and shame.

As you can tell, it's not a happy listen, but if you can make it through the gargantuan 12 minute closer Basketball Shoes without the album leaving an impact on you, I'm not exactly sure how. After all we go through with the protagonist, when Isaac Wood belts the words "All I've been forms the drone we sing the rest // Your generous loan to me // Your crippling interest" hit like a truck going 100 miles per hour.

In general, the lyrics throughout this album depict overdependence in a very thoughtful and heartbreaking way. It feels as though it is acknowledged that the relationship can't go on for the sake of the immature party, but regardless, the pain felt by that person is very real, and you feel all of that here. The understanding and the frustration.

2. Alvvays - Blue Rev

Genre: Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Jangle Pop Highlights: After The Earthquake, Pressed, Tile By Tile

Picking highlights for this album was a bitch.

Completing two trifectas on this list at once, we have the final Alvvays album, and the final of my three albums from 2022 I consider 10s. I mentioned earlier the two ways an album can end up meaning this much to me (although you'd be forgiven for not reading that, this is a long list with a lot of writing): first, you have the perfect, flawless albums that feel handed down by the gods. Then there's albums like Blue Rev.

The album isn't flawless. The mastering isn't too great, for example, and Many Mirrors is pretty far from the standard I find the album is usually operating at (an 8 amongst 9s and 10s, nothing major, but a noticeable outlier). But somehow, all the flaws I find make me love it even more. It's as if the album has more personality the more flaws I recognize, and I think that's all about the euphoria that Alvvays are so capable of creating. When the music makes you feel this good, there is no flaw that can bring it down. There is always that simple, invincible rebuttal of "and yet...".

For the final plug, I'll once again bring attention to my Alvvays retrospective for anyone who wants more in-depth thoughts on this incredible love letter to indie pop and all it's subgenres.

1. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Genre: Art Rock, Alternative Rock Highlights: Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Jigsaw Falling Into Place, Videotape

I would be downright baffled if anyone needed me to tell them that this album is phenomenal. It's seen by many a music community as one of the greatest albums of all time. I couldn't possibly go over all the reasons it's beloved by so many, but here are a few of my reasons for loving it enough to consider it my favourite album.

The first thing I feel I should touch on here is the warmth of this album. It feels like being wrapped inside a warm cocoon, with the sounds of every change in your morphing body reverberating off the walls, with the sounds themselves being a mangled reflection of what was once beautiful and natural.

That metaphor (or simile, I guess?) came to me while writing it, but it's honestly very fitting, and not just in the abstract representation of all the sounds and feelings that this album represents to me. It's also fitting in that the album seems to have a running theme of impermanence. The opener, 15 Step, is about the panic of realizing that you yourself are temporary; that your very self will one day cease to exist. Bodysnatchers represents someone whose self-hood is unfixed and ephemeral. Nude doesn't fit the theme unless you consider an opposition to change as a subversion of it, but then Weird Fishes / Arpeggi acts as a counterpoint in ways to that apathetic stubbornness ("Why should I stay here? Why should I stay?"). I could go on, but I don't want to linger on this point, picking out every example. That being said though, that theme ties everything together in a very subtle way. Subtle enough that I only picked up on it this past listen, and I've been listening to this album front-to-back, intently, several times a year for about 5 years now, but I think I always picked up on the similar thematic vibe subconsciously.

One final note to end on...

I recognize that this post is a very long one, but I wanted my proper comeback to be something big. In the future though, I'll be looking to split things up a bit more, starting with a The Cure retrospective that I've already begun working on. I'll also start an alternate blog for more laid-back thoughts about music, starting with my thoughts on these types of lists in general, which is a topic I've been thinking about since Apple Music astounded people with it's bad takes on it's own top 100 while I was in the process of making this post. Once I post that, I'll edit this post with a link. (Here's the link) Thanks for your time and I hope this helps you find an album that you like, or prompts you to revisit an old favourite!

[ninja-muse]

As you might know if you saw my review the other day, my December felt very slumpy even though I read a lot of good books. I suspect this is because of book hangovers and working a busy Christmas retail season. (I also didn't write much because I kept coming home too wiped to think.)

But it was a good month! I managed to get to a couple new releases that I really wanted to, and I knocked a lot of books off my physical TBR because none of my ARCs looking interesting. I did have a DNF again, though, of a book that I was really hoping would be great. Isn't that always the way?

I also had two rereads! One because sometimes when you're at a loss to read, you pick up Pratchett, and one because I'd promised myself I'd get to it this year and dash it, I was going to! Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! was one of the most seminal books of my childhood, and it wasn't until I reread it that I realized just how much it was. I saw a lot of my personal attitude to life in Maddy, it was probably my first true urban fantasy even though there's a whole act on a spaceship, Baba Yaga is there as a very cranky but practical sort of witch…

As for my book haul, I just want to say that it was Christmas and I didn't actually buy anything? My parents came through with some really oddball picks, as I'd expected, my sister gifted me one of her favourite reads of the year, and friends helped feed my T. Kingfisher addiction. (More on that in my yearly wrap-up.)

But the book I'm most excited to have gotten is Hogfather, and not because of the pretty cover though that's a bonus. It is, in fact, the most astounding misprint I've ever seen and I couldn't pass up a chance at a free copy. I mean, how many times do you find a beloved book in which the entire thing is bound backwards?! Thank goodness the publisher didn't want it back, is all I'm saying.

And that's probably about it! I have no idea what book I'm going to start 2024 with, because I sort of read 200+ pages of Persepolis Rising last night so I could knock it off my list and now I'm recovering from the binge.

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

A Power Unbound - Freya Marske

Jack, Alan, and their friends must find a hidden artifact and foil a plot. This would go better if Jack and Alan got along.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (gay, bi man), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay, bi woman, lesbian, genderfluid) 🏳️‍🌈 author

All the Hidden Paths - Foz Meadows

Velasin and Caethari are still feeling out their relationship when they’re summoned to the capital and almost immediately find themselves targeted again..

7.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (mlm), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (mlm), mute secondary character, cast of colour, 🏳️‍🌈 author warning: anxiety, aftermath of trauma, dubious consent

Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams with Mark Carwadine

A bumbling science fiction author travels the world in search of endangered animals.

7/10

Illuminations - T. Kingfisher

Rosa wants to help her artist-magician family, but instead she accidentally releases a creature bent on destroying them!

8/10

Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff

Two Chicago families in the 1950s become caught up in a world of cults, ghosts, monsters, and magical danger. Fortunately, they’ve had lots of practice at mistrusting white folks.

7.5/10

primarily Black cast

warning: depicts Jim Crow-era racism, including slurs; also abusive family dynamics

Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey

Thirty years on, the system has achieved a new normal. So of course one of the colony planets decides it’s time to shake things up.

7.5/10

very racially diverse cast

Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt

A cleaner at an aquarium mourns her losses. A young California man seeks his absentee father. The resident octopus tries to bring them together.

7.5/10

Jamaican secondary character, Korean-American secondary character

Ragnarok - A.S. Byatt

A child in wartime discovers Norse mythology, and the ways myths and the world reflect each other.

7.5/10

warning: animal cruelty and injury

While Idaho Slept - J. Reuben Appelman

Four students are murdered in a single night, and what came before and after.

7/10

warning: violent murders

Monstress, Volume 3 - Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (illustrator)

Maika finds temporary refuge from the people chasing her, but the local leaders want a favour in return.

7/10

one-armed protagonist, cast of colour, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Taiwanese-American author and Japanese-American illustrator

Reread

Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! - Pamela F. Service

Mandy and Owen get assigned a mythology paper, but then the characters they pick start coming to life and insisting they have a great purpose.

Black secondary character, Indigenous secondary character, Chinese secondary character

warning: somewhat lazy depictions of Indigenous and Chinese people

The Unadulterated Cat - Terry Pratchett with Gray Jolliffe (illustrator)

A humourous celebration of all things cat.

DNF

The Undetectables - Courtney Smyth

Someone’s committing Occult murders and a crack team of Occult investigators has been called in. Or, they’re totally going to be the crack team someday, at least.

main character with fibromyalgia, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian), fat secondary character, Chinese-British secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

Currently reading:

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

major disabled character

warning: racism, colonialism

Stats

Monthly total: 11+1 Yearly total: 128/140 Queer books: 2 Authors of colour: 1 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 7 Rereads: 2 Books hauled: 8 ARCs acquired: 2 ARCs unhauled: 2 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September October November

[chaikachi]

Hi, Chai! I've been following you for a bit, mostly for the RG content, and I've recently seen you talk about your other non-RWBY interests when I realized that I'm really curious on what other media do you like? (Be it shows, movies, music, games, books, etc.)

Oughh this is a very good question. I'll put them under a read more cause I have a feeling I took this question too literally and it might get just a little bit long because of that. 💦

I'm generally very passive with the media I consume and only draw as much RWBY as I do because RG has had me in a vice grip since V8E1 and isn't letting go anytime soon. 💀 But I do engage with lots of other stuff too! This isn't an exhaustive list, just ones I like lots or re-watch often enough.

Anime

I probably watch this stuff more than anything else. My favourite of all time is probably The Eccentric Family, both seasons. The art direction and the messages of the story just hit very hard for me and I re-watch it pretty much every year. My second favourite is Kekkai Sensen (i prefer the first over second season as they switch directors).

As for others enjoy:

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood

Silver Spoon

Yona of the Dawn

Snow White with the Red Hair

Kyousogiga (recommend if you liked Kekkai Sensen)

A Lull in the Sea

Chaika the Coffin Princess [Now why does that name sound so familiar 🤔]

Anohana

Been really enjoying this season's shows and am looking forward to the Winter 2024 lineup (Dungeon Meshi and Yubisaki to Renren at the same time!!)

Shows

Dragon Prince

The Owl House

Good Omens

Games

Nier (2010),

Transistor

Pyre

Zelda Series (Ocarina of Time & Spirit Tracks are my favourites)

Nier: Automata

Honorary mentions to Grand Chase (an old MMO i used to be obsessed with), Avalon Code (a niche DS game that I really liked), Fire Emblem Awakening (a classic) and Animal Crossing (that I played like it was my day job in 2020).

Movies

Can only think of two live actions and the rest are animated/anime 😭

Stardust

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Howl's Moving Castle

HTTYD (1 & 2)

Kubo and the Two Strings

The Wind Rises

From Up on Poppy Hill

Penguin Highway

Books

I don't read as much as I did when I was a kid, but my top three are probably Runemarks, Howl's Moving Castle, and Stardust (I like the last two a lot because I liked their movies).

Webcomics

Used to be really into these and wanted to write my own before Webtoon kinda... gentrified the entire industry. But hey, I can still talk about some of my favourites!

Shaderunners (queer heist in a roaring 20sish setting)

Witchy (queer south East Asian inspired fantasy adventure)

Kochab (sapphic story between a skier that gets lost and meets a fire spirit I think? It's final updates are going up this month!)

Lady of the Shard (all time favourite. queer polyam lovestory between a goddess and her acolyte. Complete. I reread it every year, I love it so much. The rest of the authors work is also great, you might know them from Cucumber Quest).

Then lastly...

Music

I mostly listen to indie/folk more than anything else, with a bit of jazz/R&B thrown in for flavour. Favourite artists are probably:

San Fermin

Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak

Of Monsters & Men

Maggie Rogers

Florence & the Machine

Paper Kites

Matthew and the Atlas

Halsey

This list obviously isn't exhaustive because I have the memory of a goldfish but those are the highlights that came to mind at least.

Sorry for the long list, but thank you for the question!! It was fun to put all these in one place.

[hatsune-mirto]

Hatsune Mirto Introduction Ver.0.5

Let's see, it's my first time doing something like this and my first time on Tumblr so I'll do my best. I'll probably scrap this introduction in the future for a more updated version when I'll get the feeling on how to do it!

With that said, hello, my name is Morgan and apparently this is my blog, Hatsune Mirto. The name is a pun of Hatsune Miku and the "Mirto", a plant used to make liquor where I live. I found this name to be pretty funny and representative of my silly personality.

I'm a 23 year old non-binary person, don't be hars with me as i don't really know how to use Tumblr as a whole.

I'll now proceed to list my interests, dividing them in various categories, I'll try to make this post as "easy" to read as possible even if it's totally not something I'm good at.

VIDEOGAMES: I have a kinda unhealthy obsession with gacha games (not a spender but I play too much of them). The ones I'm currently playing are: - Genshin Impact - Honkai Star Rail - Zenless Zone Zero - Punishing Gray Raven - Fire Emblem Heroes - I'm waiting for the Uma Musume global cause I love the anime so much! I also play League of Legends on my PC and I own a Nintendo Switch although I don't really use it much at the moment. My pc isn't very good so don't expect me to post something PC gaming related anytime soon. But here are some of my favourite non mobile games and series: - Like a Dragon - Crash Bandicoot - Rayman - Lethal Company - Fire Emblem - The Legend of Zelda - Final Fantasy - Metal Gear Solid

MUSIC: I mostly listen to italian music, so this section doesn't really have much to say for the "global audience" so let me list some artists I like: - Vocaloid (Various, mostly Miku) - System of a Down - Ado - Twenty One Pilots - Various videogames sountracks I'm not listing italian music cause I don't think it's really a topic of interest for most people

TV SERIES: I stopped watching TV series for a long time and started to come back to the media recently, here's some of my favourites: - Doctor Who - The Boys (currently watching) - Breaking Bad - Tear Along The Dotted Line - This World Can't Tear Me Down - Ultraman Blazar MOVIES: Here's some of my favourites: - Godzilla movies, they're my favourites - The Bicentennial Man - Interstellar - Kamikaze Girls - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind - My Neighbour Totoro - The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Grave of the Fireflies - Only Yesterday - Porco Rosso - Whisper of the Heart - The Cat Returns - My Neighbors the Yamada - Howl's Moving Castle - The Wind Rises - The Tale of the Princess Kaguya - Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves Yea I'm a Ghibli fangirl ANIME: - One Piece - Dragon Ball - Uma Musume - Fate Series - Inazuma Eleven - Dungeon Meshi - Frieren

I think that's enough for now, I don't know how frequently I will post here but I hope to learn how this works. Have a good day!

[hoje--aqui]

🎶✨when u get this, list 5 songs u like to listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (positivity is cool)🎶✨

MY MOMENT

I really loved it. I love music and I love talking about music.

But as a deeply eclectic person, it's humanly impossible to choose 5 songs that I like, and I don't have 5 favourites either. So I'm going to take the opportunity to share with you 5 current Brazilian songs by incredible and current alive artists, just true poems that I believe with all my heart that everyone deserves to hear and tif you decide to translate them, you won't be disappointed.

Not because I only listen to Brazilian music, but because I'm very proud of Brazilian artists and believe that they deserve to be recognised all over the world.

However, if you decide to listen to one of them, feel free to visit the rest of they discography

1 . CAJU | by Liniker

Liniker is perfect! She's a trans woman, black and has been awarded the title of Immortal by the Brazilian Academy of Letters, which is an indescribable honour for an artist, even more so in life. My favourite album by her is Indigo Borboleta Anil, but Caju is her latest and a close second.

2 . O Piano | by Coruja Bc1, Jonathan Ferr and Margareth Menezes

This one in particular is a song from a collective album with various artists, where each of the lyrics has its own musicality and proposals, but I had to mention this one in particular because it brought tears to my eyes more than once. It tells a very beautiful and very sad story (which even deserves to be drawn, so here's a possibility for a future WIP). The album itself, Brasil Futurista, is a great nomination and all the artists involved deserve to be here.

3 . A Ordem Natural das Coisas | Emicida (feat. MC Tha)

I could name so many songs by Emicida. From the most famous to the least played. 'AmarElo' is incredible and I seriously thought about putting it here (that's nomination 3.1). 'A Ordem Natural das Coisa' doesn't even remotely show the complexity of the artist's work, but it has a delicacy that can't be ignored. Think about how much life happens before the sun rises and the poetry he sees in life. It's just too beautiful.

4 . Torto Arado | Rubel, Liniker and Luedji Luna

This is perfect, because it refers to a book of the same name, which won the Jabuti Prize in 2019 (Jabuti is the highest national literary prize awarded by the Brazilian Academy of Letters). It's good to put her here, because I'd like to recommend another wonderful artist who sings pure poetry in every song she sings: Luedji Luna, another woman for the list and a wonderful one without any flaws.

aaaaaaaa there's only one more

okay

5. Ainda Aqui Sonhando | Leo Cavalcanti

I didn't want to put this one here. I was thinking of a more upbeat beat so that the list wouldn't be so quiet, and this was the opposite. But I think it's actually the most on topic and I couldn't decide which one to put last. Spotify's metrics show that I listened to this song for over 52 hours in March this year. This particular lyric touched me on a very personal level, so I don't have any great recommendations for the artist, but anyway, if you want to listen, Leo Cavalcanti.

Thanks for tagging me, and I hope you enjoy the nominations, I know I love making this list.

[haggstroem]

five songs you've been listening to lately!

@occultwhiskers (my main blog) was tagged by @parisinflamesmp3, thank you so much! i will have to cheat because i usually just listen to albums as a whole, but i'll try to pick some (with the help of Spotify stats and last.fm lmao). oh yeah, also, that's a list sorted purely by vibes.

Autumn Creature — Cuttlephone. starting off strong, i've been listening to Midday Odd a lot lately, mostly because i recommended the album to a friend a while ago and remembered how i used to only listen to it for days in the summer. quite funny that the artist runs around in my mutual circles. quite funny but also kinda scary lmao.

Ancestry — Lena Raine. the minecraft OST is an all-time classic, imo. this one however is special to me, because i typically listen to it when i am feeling very bad… and because i have not been doing so well, both physically and mentally, i listened to it on repeat a few times the last week alone.

There Must Be More Than Blood — Car Seat Headrest. i am not the biggest fan of that album, i think the older CSH albums are much better, but this specific song did stick with me. i really like the part starting at around 5:15 minutes in, and have been imagining some ocs with it. you know how it is, animatics in my head and all the good stuff.

Just — Radiohead. i have been listening to a lot of Radiohead albums, especially the ones they made in the 90s/early 00s. picked this specific song because i really like the rising guitar thing they do (that i'm pretty sure has a name, but i cannot remember it right now lmao).

rare animal — glass beach. gleach :3 big fan of glass beach and especially rare animal, i think i listened to it about 400 times this year alone. also i just really wanted to have them on this list somewhere, even if only as an honourable mention.

and that's it with this comprehensive list! i originally wanted to include Sweet Pill too, but i only found them today and don't really have a clear favourite yet lmao.

tagging… @ugneet143, @navigatorbree and everyone else who wants to! no pressure, etc etc, you know the drill already.

p.s. thanks again for the tag wasp :]

[puckpocketed]

Hi! Sorry if this is weird but do you have song/video recs? I have enjoyed what you recommended in the past. Please ignore this if you want, I know this isn't really a hockey ask :')

so does everyone else have a playlist where they store all their favourite essays/documentaries miscellaneous vids. or is that just me?? anon i hope u like hearing from me, if u wanted short answers u came to the wrong person. here are various faves from over the years:

Dawn from Pride and Prejudice (2005). i think about it often. it's a beautiful piece. i listen to this song and experience the movie all over again. the mud on elizabeth's skirt. dancing at parties. lovely potatoes. darcy and his cleavage. the mist in the morning. "you have bewitched me, body and soul. and i love, i love, i love you." the sun rising as she kisses his hand. HELLO!!!!

minesweeper is literally causing me health issues by i am error. a harrowing look at addiction through the lens of a minesweeper fixation. very funny and warm video.

The Best Food Movie Scenes Supercut by William Adiguna. fascinated by this. also i have used it for painting study reference.

How J Dilla's Timefeel ACTUALLY Works by Digging The Greats. right so. i know everyone's been making posts about black artists in the wake of the Kendrick-Drake beef and white tumblr subsequently figuring out that rap exists outside of Hamilton and music as a whole exists outside of uhhhh taylor swift. I don't think I've seen anyone mention J Dilla in my circles yet so here's a small essay about how he changed music history forever and you should absolutely listen to him. we lost him too fucking early, but his legacy lives on in the beat!!

The Lincoln Highway: Across America on the First Transcontinental Motor Route by Noah Caldwell-Gervais. this is a 7 and 1/2 hour travelogue by one of my favourite writers of all time. he has shorter videos about games and travel, but this one is an all-timer for me. I admire him so much. His writing voice is so lush and intentional, he weaves narrative with every sentence, and yet nothing feels superfluous. i have listened to this video multiple times and always find something new to think about.

Savestate vs Armada - The Quest for the Frozen Turnip by Melee Stats. if you made it this far down the list we are either best friends or you are super bored and want something to watch. here's the sell: Armada is one of the 5 Gods of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Savestate is this weirdo who does speedruns and loves to break the game. they go head to head at a tournament, super smash con. the frozen turnip is a bug that sort of breaks the game. chaos ensues <3

Stylish Academic Writing a lecture by Helen Sword (Harvard University). I think about this video a lot. As someone who writes a lot of academic essays and For Fun essays, this lecture was formative.

Time and Again - How to Write and Understand Time Loops by Replay Value. dissecting and categorising time loops, and teaching you how to write them in the process. excellent video even if you aren't a writer or don't have an interest in writing sci-fi/time travel!

With Love by Harbour. this song makes me so happy. i will dance to it with my future wife in our kitchen. i will sing this to her under under our pink lights. that kinda vibe <3

thank you for dropping by!! <3 and giving me an excuse to inflict a bunch of recs onto my followers!! hit me up for more recs any time ig??

[goofygooberton]

Thanks for the tag @feralgodmothers ! I am finally using tumblr on my laptop so i can actually copy/paste this and do this :P

Rules: Bold the ones that are true and tag 15 people to do it.

Appearance

i’m over 5’5” // i wear glasses/contacts // i have blonde hair // i prefer loose clothing to tight clothing (tbh this doesnt matter that much to me but my clothes have gotta be soft)// i have one or more piercings // i have at least one tattoo // i have blue eyes// i have dyed or highlighted my hair (dyed my hair for the first time this year and I've already done four different colors haha. Currently it's pink)// i have gotten plastic surgery // i have or had braces // i sunburn easily // i have freckles // i paint my nails // i typically wear make-up // i don’t often smile // i am pleased with how i look// i prefer nike to adidas // i wear baseball hats backwards

Hobbies & Talents

i play a sport// i can play an instrument // i am artistic // i know more than one language //i have won a trophy in some sort of competition// i can cook or bake without a recipe // i know how to swim // i enjoy writing // i can do origami // i prefer movies to tv shows // i can execute a perfect somersault // i enjoy singing // i could survive in the wild on my own (girl noooooo i would die after maybe a week. Also depends on the environment, I'd obviously last alot longer in a place with a reasonable amount of water) //i have read a new book series this year // i enjoy spending time with friends // i travel during school or work breaks // i can do a handstand

Relationships

i am in a relationship // i have been single for over a year // i have a crush (honestly I dont know how to classify whatever feelings are going on atm lmao. but it's towards fictional characters so it doesnt really matter :)) // i have a best friend i have known for ten years (not quite but its coming up on ten years, damn the time flies)// my parents are together // i have dated my best friend // i am adopted // my crush has confessed to me // i have a long distance relationship // iam an only child// i give advice to my friends // i have made an online friend // i met up with someone i have met online

Nature

i have heard the ocean in a conch shell // i have watched the sun rise // i enjoy rainy days // i have slept under the stars (I wish! this is def going on the bucket list) // i meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me // i enjoy the smell of the beach // i know what snow tastes like // i listen to music to fall asleep // i enjoy thunderstorms // i enjoy cloud watching (oooo I havent done that in ages) // i have attended a bonfire // i pay close attention to colours (only if im drawing haha) // i find mystery in the ocean (who doesn't! it's like outer space, but down) // i enjoy hiking on nature paths (I love you, hiking) // autumn is my favourite season

Misc.

i can fall asleep in a moving vehicle // i am the mom friend // i live by a certain quote // i like the smell of sharpies // i am involved in extracurricular activities // i enjoy mexican food // i can drive a stick-shift // i believe in true love//i make up scenarios to fall asleep (oh boy do I do this)// i sing in the shower (on occasion)// i wish i lived in a video game // i have a canopy above my bed // i am multiracial (well multi-ethnic technically depending on how you distinguish race) // i am a redhead // i own at least three dogs

Okay fifteen people here we go: @noelpilled @gsdfuogsdojp @ishouldfindarealjob @2offayyo-kzt @albarnmylove @snorzyy @queenandtheboosh @tommeetenspookie @trainstationdweller @gaycostanzas (what a username, and they're absolutely right) @too-many-ships-to-fit-in-one-url @bedroomcloset @startrekkingintheshadows @elie12-4 @augbesian

No pressure ofc! have fun :)

[god-has-entered-my-body]

what's your favourite 75 song!! and what other music do you listen to <333

outing myself as a fairly new fan here (started listening to them around late dec/early jan) so POTB was the first song i truly fell in love with!! No, seriously, i've played it 228 times in the span of six months it's been my baby ever since I discovered the guys.

As for fav 75 song(s), musically it has to be Give yourself a try/Frail state of mind/Undo. i just love those songs so so so much the production is golden. Lyrically, it's the either Tbp or, you guessed it, paris. As a songwriter and recovering addict both of those songs are raw and real for me, fell in love the moment I heard them.

But honestly i cant list off favourite songs just like that. Each and every song is an experience in and of itself, and i reckon lists/rankings simply don't do music any justice.

Other music i listen to? I can't really define my taste (trust me, i've tried) but i can tell you some of the records i've been into lately!!

All quiet on the eastern Esplanade - The Libertines Self titled - The Smiths First impressions of Earth - The Strokes The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess - Chappell Roan Die Bestie in Menschengestalt - Die Ärzte Who really cares - TV Girl Around the Fur - Deftones Brat - Charli XCX (vibrating waiting for it to drop omfg) and of course my baby: Aladdin Sane - David Bowie

Apart from that, a few smaller artists i really like atm are Paul Weber & Amélie Farren, srsly go check out their stuff!!

this is so unnecessarily long but it warms my heart that you lot care? makes me proper giddy i love you xx

[justajarofsoil]

💚💚Proper intro to my blog!💚💚

(Fandom list at the bottom)

Who am I?

Online I go by Dirt and I go by any pronouns <3 Here’s a couple things about me!

I’m a Cottagecore little guy

My favourite subjects are Biology and Chemistry

I have an obsession with carnivorous plants

My favourite genre of music is deathcore

My favourite colour is green

I would love any advice and will try to implement constructive criticism into future work. Non-constructive criticism and insults will just be ignored.

Royale High Comms

I’m planning to start Royale High drawing commissions for diamonds. Prices and such will be determined at a later date when I feel ready.

Requests

I MIGHT TAKE REQUESTS! I understand my art skills aren’t nearly as good as most of the absolutely amazing artists on here but I’m trying to learn and grow. If anyone has any requests of characters from fandoms on the list at the bottom of this post I might accept depending on how I feel about the character and the request! I do not expect to get many but still, I may not do them as I don’t want this blog to feel like a chore instead of a hobby.

Requests I won’t accept include are OCs (with exceptions I’ll specify) and anything NSFW. I may do a few OCs in the future if the character interests me but I don’t want to be used as a free commissions blog.

What am I doing on Tumblr?

I’m doing my best to get better at digital art! I will probably post some new art a couple times a week throughout summer, although next academic year I’ll probably struggle to keep a constant schedule. I’ll also post some nature photos.

What fandoms will I post for?

I’m someone who will be in and out of some fandoms, I’ll often only be there for one character or ship lol.

I do have a selection of fandoms that I am really engrossed in and will probably make LOTS of stuff for!

FANDOMS I AM IN AND OUT OF:

Lego Monkie Kid

DCU

FNAF

Splatoon

Minecraft

Spiderverse

Arcane

Saiki K

Undertale (yes, the AU part of the fandom… I’m not proud of myself)

FAITH

FANDOMS I AM ✨LITERALLY OBSESSED✨WITH:

TMNT (2012, 2014/2016 (Bayverse), 2018 (Rise), Mutant Mayhem

BATIM Franchise

Nightwish (idk if this counts as a fandom but they’re my fav band and I will make content of them)

DnD

(I’ll update this list as interests come and go)

I hope you like my artwork!