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unholyverse · 6 months

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waterparks // rock sound 25 icon issue

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ROCK SOUND 25 ICON

WATERPARKS

WATERPARKS HAVE NEVER BEEN A BAND THAT ARE HAPPY TO SIT AROUND AND WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN, RELEASING FIVE STUDIO ALBUMS IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS WHILE CONTINUING TO GROW THEIR INCREASINGLY AMBITIOUS LIVE SHOWS. AS THEY ACCEPT THEIR ROCK SOUND 25 ICON AWARD, FRONTMAN AWSTEN KNIGHT TALKS US THROUGH THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BAND IN HOUSTON, TEXAS AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THE TRIO.

WORDS: JAMES WILSON-TAYLOR PHOTOS: JAWN ROCHA

"NO MATTER WHAT, ALL THOSE ALL THOSE BANDS LIKE GOOD CHARLOTTE, GREEN DAY AND BLINK, THEY'RE STILL GOING TO BE IN THE BONES AND FOUNDATION OF WHAT WE'RE DOING."

Let's start at the beginning - what are your earliest musical memories?

Alright, so you can start the article with this - as I crawled out of my mother, my dad made sure the first song I ever heard was 'Wouldn't It Be Nice? by The Beach Boys. The other day somebody asked me what would be the last song I wanted to hear if I knew I was gonna die. I mean, I have death songs, don't get me wrong. I've got songs that I would choose to die to, some Death Cab and Motion City Soundtrack. But I think because I love bookends and I love like tying things together. I would have to listen to 'Wouldn't It Be Nice?'.

He took you to a lot of The Beach Boys shows when you were growing up too right?

I do remember those. It would always be on the Fourth of July. How were they always in Houston? He'd also be listening to stuff like Van Halen. My mom really liked Prince. My dad didn't like my mom's music; she liked Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan. But I remember watching TV getting dressed in the mornings, VH1 and MTV, and being so afraid of Mudvayne. They would film it at that frame rate that's the same as 28 Days Later and they had the devil makeup on. So I remember music scaring the shit out of me.

Do you remember the bands and music that you first connected with?

I heard 'Fat Lip' by Sum 41 on the radio in fourth grade. We were in my dad's Honda Civic and I was like 'What is this?' Then I saw it on TV later. Then that got me into Green Day, Good Charlotte, Blink-182. It helped that MTV actually played those things so I could find them. So that was the first stuff that I really gravitated towards in fourth, fifth, sixth grade. Then in sixth and seventh grade, that's when I started getting more into what nerds would be mad at me calling emo like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, From First To Last. A few years ago at my parents' house, I found these mix CDs and they had Linkin Park, Chronic Future, that song 'United States Of Whatever', Bowling For Soup. That's when I was buying stuff. Basically once I heard 'Fat Lip', I was just like, 'well, now I'm going to hear all of the songs like this'.

You were lucky to grow up at that time where this kind of music was more easy to discover because it was everywhere in pop culture. That is partly why those bands are still so influential.

I feel like no matter what, all those bands like Good Charlotte, Green Day and Blink, they're still going to be in the bones and foundation of what we're doing. I can still explore as much as I want with production and go do weird shit and try and push things forward as much as possible, because that should be your job as a musician, at least partially. But at the end of the day, the house was still built on that.

As you started playing in bands and playing shows yourself, what did you make of the local scene in Houston?

I started playing shows when I was 13. I've done my 10,000 hours. I remember when I was in seventh and eighth grade; there were some punk bands in the Houston scene that I remember seeing all the fucking time. I still have all these flyers still. But the vast majority, I'd say 85% of the bands, were mainly hardcore. That's mainly what the Houston scene was. So I remember my friends and I would just spend every day at local venues. When you're young, you absorb things better and you learn more. I think that's why when kids start piano when they're three, they can be prodigies, you know what I mean? But I feel like I got that with music that ultimately wouldn't help me very much in the future. I could still list 100 bands from Houston that those people have probably forgotten that they were in by this point. But we would just hang out and if a local band somehow didn't pull through, they would let us go take their spot. I was probably in eight different bands over the course of like three or four years. Whoever I was with, we would just go play the shows. We'd make some songs up, we played covers sometimes. We covered The Used and Motion City Soundtrack, Scary Kids Scaring Kids.

Your first couple of Waterparks' EPs were self- made and self-released, keeping in that DIY spirit. Yet it still felt like you were ambitious and aiming high even back then.

Can I tell you the difference between then and now? See, I don't advertise this information but I don't even listen to that much music now. I'm trying to be better about that and I've got certain friends that will give me stuff to immerse myself. But I've gotten maybe a little bit frustrated. There's so many times where I keep finding cool people on Tik Tok when I finally do go looking for new music, and I'll talk to them for a second and maybe see if they wanna open up for us on tour but they can't because so many fucking people are just quiet signed to major labels. It irritates the shit out of me and the reason they're hiding it is because everybody is so obsessed with authenticity, which they have the right to be, you want your shit to be organic, homegrown, free range, cruelty free, all that shit. But everything that I look at is just a fucking marketing trick or ploy. What is the equivalent of me just being in my fucking room at my parents' house?

"I FEEL MORE LOOSE AND I FEEL LIKE EVERY TOUR I GET BETTER AS A SINGER."

In terms of your attitude back then, you were just treating those self-releases as if you were already on a major label. It didn't feel less legit to you.

Day and night, you're working on those things. It was very real. We're about to get to the point of this conversation where we start trying to quantify success and what it means and it's intangible, we can't do it. But what I do know is you can easily get tricked and be like, 'Oh, my Tik Toks are getting millions of hits' and then draw 20 people to your show. I've seen it happen. So I just care how many people ride with you and will leave their home to come see you play. I don't care how many fucking playlists you bought, I don't care how many ads you run on your Spotify, I don't care if YouTube picked you up on their fucking algorithm - good for you because they've never done that for us - but I want to know how many people fuck with you.

With your own live show, when did you feel like it clicked for Geoff, Otto and yourself? When did you first feel like you understood what a Waterparks show should be?

Maybe 'Fandom'. I didn't start taking vocal lessons till 2021. I feel like that's the first time where I look back and it's not just us playing a song and then stopping and then playing the song and then stopping. It's where we actually built a show. That's when we had 'Double Dare 2019' and 'Entertainment 2019' where we were playing for eight minutes straight and made me feel like fucking Green Day. Like some like 'Jesus of Suburbia', 'Bullet In A Bible' type shit. That's not me saying I thought we sucked during 'Entertainment'. That's not what it is at all. We did cool shit. We did Reading & Leeds main stage on 'Entertainment'. But I just feel like things clicked more on 'Fandom'. I feel so much more comfortable onstage every single tour. I feel more loose and I feel like every tour I get better as a singer. I better not get fucking worse. As long as you're continuing to practice and improve. I need to go fucking play tennis and boxing and all this other shit to be at my best when we're touring, you know what I mean? As long as I'm not fully just lounging and then going straight to the stage, I should, in theory, be a better performer.

You mentioned Reading & Leeds, which was one of many milestone moments you've had in the UK. How do you reflect on your relationship with the fans over here?

I give the UK a lot of shit for their food and everything but truthfully, those are my favourite shows in the world. They've always given us the most love and I just feel like the UK appreciates bands more. You know what I mean? I wonder if it's because the BBC still plays guitars? Or maybe they just care about rock culture more.

So to jump back a little, when you were making 'Double Dare', what aims did you have? What was on your to-do list around that time?

I could tell you the list. A big bucket list. I don't erase things when I complete them, I just add on. (Looking through his computer) Let's see…I can tell you one of the things it says here is 'A Rock Sound cover'. I tried to fill it out as much as I could with the knowledge that I had because sometimes you don't know what goals you can ask for. You know what I mean? I put 'Have a Top 10 album' and then you get to mark that off. 'Headline Reading and Leeds', not marked off. 'Have a music video on TV. Get shirts in Hot Topic. Play a show with Kesha. Get an apartment. Get a music video with 100K views. Record an album.' I got to mark that one off. There's a ton. I think when you're making that, you also have to look big. You have to project and manifest big shit. When I was in my parents' house thinking about 'Crave' with $0 to my name, I was thinking about playing that in arenas. We hadn't played a show to more than 500 people at that point. So yeah, I think it's always just pretending you're Coldplay. That kind of doesn't change. I mean, I guess until you become Coldplay, and then you're like 'how do we be as big as God?'

“AT A CERTAIN POINT, THERE ARE THINGS THAT YOU DEAL WITH THAT THERAPISTS DON'T UNDERSTAND. SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO ACCEPT THOSE THINGS."

You've been very fortunate to have some mentors help guide you towards those goals with Joel and Benji Madden and Mikey Way all there to give advice from early on.

So as we said earlier, we didn't have anyone in our corner when we were doing 'Airplane Conversations', 'Black Light' and writing 'Cluster'. Nobody was around; it was just us at home. Joel and Benji both reached out quickly after the other. They were the first people to ever give us the good shit. 'Hey, we see what you're doing. It's cool'. They were the first established people to ever reach out and give us props. I was babysitting and our fucking first label we had just signed with was like, 'Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?' I'm like, 'Oh, just probably babysitting, teaching guitar lessons'. And they're like, 'Well, do you want to come to Los Angeles and have lunch with Benji and Joel?' Then I'm hitting up Geoff and Otto and we come out and we talked about our goals. Fast-forward, they're like 'You want to do some co-writes?' I wanted to be a team player about it because back then especially, I was like 'nobody touches our shit, we don't get help from anybody, we are DIY'. I was so fucking close-minded punk about it. But when they heard all the demos, they went 'Oh, wait, you already have all these. Do you want to use these?' So that's 'Cluster'. That's when Mikey came through and was listening to us. He was always just so nice. He's like 'I'd love to play on it'. So I'm sitting there showing him the bass parts, and he's getting it fucking immediately. It was so weird. I felt like I could be arrested any second and just immediately sound like a crazy person. 'No, no, no, I was talking to My Chemical Romance and Good Charlotte's my friend'. At a certain point, there are things that you deal with that therapists don't understand. Sometimes it's hard to accept those things. Let's say I'm on a tour, which is already a scary thing. You're in a van, you're not fucking sleeping. You have no fucking money. Part of your team is trying to go back on the already shitty contract you have and you're getting fucking cheated on and you're doing just a bunch of crazy shit. You can't call a therapist for that shit. So I would talk to them, especially Joel. I would save those conversations, because I would have to go back to them so much. His time is valuable. It's almost like a cheat sheet in a way. It doesn't perfectly tie up all those bad things but those are probably the best answers I'm gonna get.

Let's talk about playing Warped Tour. You did it a few times in those early years and it must have been a pretty good learning process on how to grow your fanbase.

All 2016 we toured on 'Cluster'. 'Stupid For You' didn't come out until November that year. The reason I think I'm so good at marketing is because I had to do fucking all of it for four years straight. I was talking to somebody about this the other day where they were like, 'Oh man, if you guys ever opened for Taking Back Sunday, you'd fucking kill it. You'd get so many fans'. No, we wouldn't. And I can say this confidently, because I've promoted outside of three of their shows and I can tell you, those people did not like us. There's always the exception that proves the rule, but for the most part, I can tell you where we will and will not thrive because I've promoted to every fucking fan base. So Warped wasn't really different. Based on what shirts they were wearing at barricade or certain age ranges; I have a good meter of who will fuck with it and who will not. A Sleeping With Sirens fan would fucking love us, a Bayside fan would fucking hate us. You get what I mean? Paramore fans would fucking love us. An Alkaline Trio fan would fucking hate us. But the thing is, at Warped, you're kind of forced to exercise that muscle because all of those people are walking by. I wasn't shy on stage or anything but I think that could be one of the reasons I'm really good at crowd work. There's been a lot of bands we've toured with who say 'I don't know how you just talk to them for fucking five minutes between songs about different shit every night'. I don't know how you don't.

"IF IT'S NOT GOING UP AND GETTING BIGGER AND BETTER, I DON'T REALLY WANT TO DO IT."

Once you got to 'Fandom' and 'Greatest Hits', you were far more comfortable with experimenting musically and on the production side too. Did you feel a change in your confidence levels when you reached that era?

Confidence wise, yeah, but I think I'm too close to really see how big of a difference there is on certain things. I always wanted to be able to do 'Fandom' and even on the first EP with songs like 'Fantastic' or 'Silver', we are adding a weird synthy thing or vocal cuts. I was trying to explain that to this kid in the garage in the middle of fucking redneck nowhere woods, Texas. He just cut the voice and I'm like 'pitch it up and drag this one there'. Or bringing a weird, syncopated piano thing into the outro. I tried to make sure of that early on because I've always been such a fan of so many things. I just wanted that to come across even on album one. 'Crave' was a fully electronic thing, 'Territory' I wanted that to be an indie kind of vibe and then 'Mad All The Time' I wanted to be more industrial, kind of like Linkin Park with those weird, major melodies. 'Take Her To The Moon', full fucking pop song then throw 'Dizzy' in there with cut up shit and trappy drums. Then album two, we're gonna go fucking hard as hell with it on 'Tantrum'. I always felt like we were doing these things. But then I heard those albums the way I hear demos, where I think I hear kind of what they are in my head, what they could or should be. I remember when I showed the 'Fruit Roll Ups' demo to Travis (M. Riddle). He didn't really like it that much. It had all the same parts, all the same chords, vocals, the synth outro and the solo and all this stuff. But then when he heard the final one, where I went in with Zakk (Cervini, producer), and we beefed it up and added more stuff, he was like 'I love this one now so much'. But it's the same song. So when those first albums aren't seen as eclectic as the albums starting at 'Fandom', it would confuse me because I always felt like things were diverse. It really might just come down to the production.

One thing that certainly did change was how open you were in your lyrics. They were always honest but now they became a lot more specific over time.

Pete Wentz is my favourite lyricist and I love things just sounding as pretty as possible, trying to word things that people feel but in ways that they've never heard it described. You take a feeling like love, something that everybody fucking knows, and then just say it in a way with a combination of words that nobody has used yet. That was the goal for so long, but then I remember something kind of clicking when I was so mad and made 'Tantrum'. There was something that felt so much more cathartic. It actually gave me adrenaline and I wanted to chase that. That felt so good. There were certain songs like 'Reboot' or this demo called 'Play'. I wouldn't let a song go if it didn't give me chills. Certain lines like 'you're gonna be just like your mother', that's gonna make someone in real life so mad. So I think that's where that came from. Then songs like 'Turbulent' happened - 'you had your own Pete Wentz and Patrick combined' - and that's the start of the song. Are you kidding me? Who in the music sphere is going to hear that and not have some kind of reaction? And I just wanted a reaction. I could start 'Sleep Alone' and it doesn't have to elicit the same thing, but something as strong. They shouldn't elicit the same exact feeling, but they should elicit that dynamic level of emotional response.

“IF WE NEVER GET TO DO THIS AGAIN, I WANT TO GIVE THEM THE COOLEST SHIT POSSIBLE WHILE WE GET TO BE IN THIS SPOT."

As you mentioned earlier, it is hard to quantify success. A good example is the way 'I Miss Having Sex But At Least I Don't Wanna Die Anymore' became your most streamed song, largely due to a TikTok trend you had very little to do with.

I didn't even know it was happening. Now, there's so many viral songs that the cycle is quicker. Somebody can have a song that bangs on Tik Tok for two weeks and then it's done. But this was so early on. It wasn't a single; it was a deep cut song on the album. It still doesn't have a music video. Neither does 'Turbulent'. It's just so odd because it also makes you a little mad. But then it's also a little humbling in a way. Things are out of your control, but they'll be okay.

You are still touring your most recent album 'Intellectual Property' so it is probably too early to fully analyze it but, now that we are nearly a year on from its release, how are you reflecting on what you achieved with that record?

I've told you this before but if it's not going up and getting bigger and better, I don't really want to do it. I don't want to spin the tyres in fucking mud. If it's not happening, then I'm not gonna do the trap where things start downgrading and we have to play old albums. It's not what I want. I'm good enough at other things to figure something out but preserve that legacy. But 'Intellectual Property' charted higher than any of our fucking other albums, first Top 10 in the UK. We've sold more tickets to the 'Property' tour than the 'Fandom' tour and the 'See You In The Future' tour combined. I'll say that one more time - we sold more tickets to the 'Property' tour than the entire 'Fandom' tour and the entire 'Greatest Hits' tour if you put them both together and add them up. That's the indicator to me. That's what matters to me. I did say at the top of the cycle in such a simple way that I want one of the red songs above the green songs. That's literally what I told Fueled By Ramen. So that didn't happen because the Tik Tok lords did not mysteriously bless us in our sleep. We still sold more. We got more real people in real seats. More was accomplished and it was bigger and better.

It feels like you have the same aim with each tour too - growing and building on what came before. Yet, again, you have always had those bigger ambitions for the show even when you were in slightly smaller rooms.

Dress for the job you want. With all the rooms we did on the 'Property' tour, they're the same ones that we would do for 'Greatest Hits', right? So it's like, okay, we did it. We conquered those rooms. Now we have to move up. Shit. Because otherwise, you just keep doing victory laps forever in the same rooms. So some of them, there's no fucking chance in hell we're gonna sell these out. But it's cool to try. And the thing is, it's still selling on par with the 'Property' tour. Part of me is like, damn, I wish we could have as many sold out things but there are already more people going to this show than the previous sold out one. So I pick my battles. Yeah, you could go play to 1300 people in New York again or you could try and do the fucking big ass thing. So that's kind of where it's at now. You want to build a fucking real show. On the 'Property' tour, we actually got to build shit for the first time. We built a set and this time it is just a bigger version of that. It's just bigger and with more changes. It's not even a spoiler because that's so fucking vague, but to have the show and set change as the set goes on, it's fucking cool. Sometimes I see people who are doing these same size rooms (so this isn't remotely punching down, we're doing the same rooms) and they'll just have a banner. Give them more. Give them a show. I'm so grateful to actually get to be in these rooms finally that if we never get to do this again, I want to give them the coolest shit possible while we get to be in this spot.

"NO PART OF ME IS INTERESTED IN JUST REPEATING THE CYCLE OVER AND OVER AND OVER."

Speaking of bigger shows, you got to play in arenas for the first time when you supported My Chemical Romance. Given what a huge fan you are of that band, it must have felt quite surreal.

Dude, it was so weird and so cool. Every night, the first song scared the shit out of me and then you kind of get the rhythm of it. It's just so weird. Sometimes between songs, I just had to look and take a mental picture. I saw My Chem when I was younger in an arena and I could see the seats I was in, you know what I mean? I could see people in them. You get to a certain point where stuff doesn't blow your mind as much but that blew my fucking mind every day. I remember the first time we ever got to go in a bus. It was so exciting. Now, when I get in the bus, I'm like, 'Okay, but where's the charger in the bunk? Where's the air? Is it just gonna freeze my feet?' It's not to say I'm ungrateful it just becomes more normal. If you go to the best pizza spot every day, after years of having it, it's just a good pizza spot. But getting to go open for My Chem and everything around it and all the details of it, I just never got used to. We'd go to the catering room and we'd sit down and there's Frank and there's Ray. We were in this hockey arena in the locker room and I had all my outfits, planning them out, and at one point, Gerard came through. I was showing him the fits and everything and he was like, 'Oh, you have great style'. I don't think you can get used to that. It's crazy. Maybe My Chem is used to it because they've been playing arenas for years and years and years, maybe that's the standard now. But God, that blew my fucking mind every day.

As you start to think about wrapping up this era, what are the goals as you move forward?

I just want to go places that we haven't been because that's what makes me feel excited. Like with playing in an arena for the first time, anything that is a huge dynamic change. That's all I'm looking for. I just want to feel excited. The people who like us, I appreciate them because we're so lucky enough to be in a place where we don't have to tour into the fucking ground if we don't want to just to survive. No part of me is interested in touring into the ground this year. I feel like we've been on tour for the last two and a half years straight. 2022 was preparing for this album, 2023 was promoting this album. One thing I enjoyed about 2019 was that we only did a short opening run, early in the year, and then we did the 'Fandom' tour at the end of the year. But that whole spring, summer and fall, we were just making cool shit. That made me feel excited. We made so many music videos and just did a lot of cool shit. We got to focus on the creative. I never would have been throwing around Sunny D in my apartment bathroom taking pictures of it for the 'Fandom' album cover if I had jetlag. No part of me is interested in just repeating the cycle over and over and over. I want to just do things that we haven't done yet and make stuff for everyone. Because if we go play in Copenhagen, Waterparks is for Copenhagen that day. But when I'm home and we're operating at full mental capacity and everything, we can make things for everybody. At the end of the day, I never want to fall into a pattern and repeat myself and do the same shit. I want to expand and see what we can do, what our capabilities are like. Do something that somebody hasn't done yet. I want to rent a movie theatre and do a fucking real premiere. I don't want to give a bunch of shit away but there's a lot of things that are always in the works. As Awsten, the guy steering the ship on fucking Waterparks, whatever's going on I just want it to be new and cool and feel fulfilling. If we had some fucking tyrant label that was like 'We need an album now' I could go 'There's fucking 100 songs on here. Go fucking make your album, pick them. Go have Zakk mix them'. But it's just not what intuitively feels right and I want to follow that intuition. I keep looking back at the 2019 year map as kind of a blueprint. That's not to say I'm gonna stay home all year. But it's just gotta be new. I want that feeling of getting in the bus for the first time.

#i only edited one of these outside of adjustment edits bc i realized the shadowy thing actually worked for a shoot like this let me be lazy #waterparks #awsten knight #geoff wigington #otto wood #i.zip

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starrysharks · 2 months

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It's really interesting hearing you talk about what kind of music your ocs will listen to!

I'm curious to know, what would the Starsaints Carnival kids listen?

i'm glad you like my music talk! i've really been getting into different genres these days, so it's fun to assign them to my characters ^^

for starsaints, i imagine the story takes place in the late 2000s-early 2010s, so the characters fav artists should reflect that. i feel as if hero in particular would really like acoustic guitar and slow/soft rock/folk music, as i imagine his mother would be musically inclined (though not practice anymore as she has to take care of him and his sister). maybe she played the guitar for him when he was smaller and it affected his music tastes! ^_^ other than that, he'd like cartoon theme songs and such. he's very imaginative so i think he'd be the type to imagine music videos and stuff to the songs he hears.

chiffon is edgier, and i feel like she'd be really into "girl rock" type music like avril lavigne, paramore, the pretty reckless... any rock band with a female vocalist. she's picky, and i feel like she'd find most male vocalists grating lol.

mallow on the other hand definitely prefers sweeter melodies... cute, poppy stuff like the cardigans and mars argo. things that are cute on the surface but might have deeper lyrics that she'd relate to. defo slightly obscure genres like picopop and shibuya-kei too! also, i feel she'd be the type to seek out small cover artists on youtube and download their songs hehe

yao likes video game soundtracks of course, but i think he'd also like nu metal/hard rock, bands like linkin park and chevelle with emotional lyrics. who knows maybe he'd even like metalcore? so that, and a mix of any video game soundtrack - he prefers older JRPGs, so the sort of things you'd find in there.

for watts, any stereotypical "nerd" music will do, but i don't really think he'd actually listen to music that much. his parents would definitely want him to like classical, probably the type to try and get him to listen to it before he's even born, but he'd HATEEE it i swear... i think he'd like more experimental music like math rock and anything with synthesisers and layered sound.

chantry, on the other hand, would definitely like slower music, instrumental only. it's kind of hard to explain, but with how easy to scare they are, i feel they'd prefer predicable melodies that don't have any screams or unpleasant mouth sounds lol. i don't have any bands or artists in mind though.

and lastly cosmo... definitely the one with the "weirdest" taste out of them all, probably into vocaloid (i'm thinking kikuo, wowaka, dennoko-P, the works), woovy music, synths and weird noises that remind you of space. anything about space interests them, so i think they'd also be into the music from shows relating to aliens and such like steven universe lol

i wish i could go over more characters, but arggghhh, way too many starsaints characters are spoilers in and of themselves... thank you for the ask though! it was nice to think about these guys again as my mind's been focused on reassassination these days lol ^_^

#ask zeno #ocs #oc rambling #long post #starsaints carnival #hero estrela #chiffon petrichor #mallow lovelack #yao lamptey #joules watts wattson #chantry syzygy #cosmo callune

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imagineee-123 · 4 months

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⟡₊⊹Introduction Post⊹₊⟡

Hello! I never do posts like this on any of my socials even though I mean to, so I'm gonna finally give this a shot! This might be really long Imao

About my blog:

This blog is currently mostly about my practices as a newer hellenic polytheist and a Hades devotee. But I also post about visual kei and whatever else on this account. (Although I am thinking about separating this content to different blogs)

About me:

I'm Imagineee, but you can call me Lucian (Lu-see-in) or Ciel. Or even Luci for short. My pronouns are he/they! I turned 17 this summer.

I'm on the aroace spectrum (demiromantic and demisexual) as well as being pansexual and a gender non-conforming transmasc. I don't really identify as anything specific when it comes to gender, but I'm definitely not a girl! (Don't she/her me... Pls. ╥﹏╥)

I'm really into vkei and, as stated earlier, a newer hellenic polytheist. I've only been practicing for about a year (when I have the energy), so I still have a lot to learn.

My interests/hobbies:

visual kei and j-fashion

reading up about bandmen I like

Japanese music

music in general

anime

Genshin Impact*

Project Sekai*

Honkai: Star Rail

Twisted Wonderland*

Wuthering Waves

Stardew Valley

art and painting

vocaloid

photography

storing things in my memory boxes

Howl's Moving Castle (book and movie)

collecting manga/figures of things I like

reading about dieties and others' practices

going to graveyards

watching YouTube

(* means I've lost a lot of interest over time but still enjoy these things)

Favorite vkei bands:

It's so hard to pick... I think Plastic Tree, Ninth in Pluto, Fukuro, and Madmans Esprit are some of my favorites.

Favorite music (not vkei):

I listen to pretty much everything. But some of my favorite musicians/groups outside of vkei are Eve, Re:nG, takayan, Gesu No Kiwami Otome, Linkin Park, kikuo, MCR, Cage the Elephant, and Eyedress. I have too many favorites, but it's so hard to cut down because I listen to such a variety of music, and I love it all. Ahhhh

Favorite song atm:

Likes:

Rain

The beach

Fire

Graveyards

The moon

Sweets

Hades ofc

Sleeping in

Renaissance oil paintings

Bees

Crows (birds in general tbh)

Laying in the grass

Other:

My MBTI is INFP-T. My star sign is leo. I use emoticons sometimes. I use :3 and >:3 unironically whenever I'm really happy or excited about something. I own four budgies and two dogs. I also have PTSD and really bad social anxiety. I really want to go to Japan and see a vkei band live one day.

݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ And that is (finally) my intro! I hope we can be friends! ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁

#blog intro #intro post #introductory post #introduction #visual kei #vkei #hellenism #deity worship #hades deity #hellenic deities #vkei fashion #bangyao #hades devotee #aroacespec #pansexual #queer #transgender #transmasc

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kivaember · 5 months

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What kind of music do you think the AC6 characters listen to?

Hmm it's not something I've thought about much but let's see what I can think of from the top of my head:

Rusty - trashy dance remixes that he plays when on 'boring' missions, that is him kicking over MTs or toying with AC pilots that are nowhere near his level. He likes the bopping energy, and also the first time he heard dance remixes was when he got to earth so they sound pretty novel to him LMAO

621 - listens to heavy metal music, if there's screaming in it, he likes it even more. Guttural growling, sick electric guitar solos, a beat you can punch an enemy AC in time with... he likes them bc it's venting, since he can't scream or make loud noises himself, he lives vicariously through that kind of music instead. (just imagine it like this)

Walter - where do you think 621 got the heavy metal music from?

Iguazu - god im thinking like, smth like eminem or linkin park type of music. sorta emo and edgy. maybe my chemical romance too. just that sort of genre. he's not into heavy metal, but he likes the lyrics that he can connect with even if he won't admit it to anyone

Michigan - he's so lame he likes military kind of music, dfhdhhdgdg bc otherwise he doesn't really listen to music that much... he actually hates heavy metal music and one of his main arguments with walter when they lived together was fo rhim to not play his "screeching" so loudly (to which walter called him an old man)

#armored core rambling #just imagining rusty and 621 on a sortie together #and rusty's been playing his playlist #and eventually he asks if 621 has a playlist he wants to play #ends up nearly going deaf when 621's heavy metal screaming music comes blasting over the comms full volume

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machiroads · 1 month

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anirevo 2024 con report belooooooow

THURSDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 8TH

Left my office at 4:30. Took the bus to the ferry straight from work except the GODDAMN BUS DIDN'T ACTUALLY STOP TO PICK ME UP so I had to wait for the next one and missed the 6:00 ferry so I didn't get to my hotel in Vancouver until after 10pm oof

The slow bus was very nice once i got over being mad about the fast bus leaving me on read by way of listening to linkin park. It goes through some very quaint rural areas.

I purchased a can of wine on the ferry which was like $15 for 8.5oz. I don't know how I feel about this but I do feel like I got ripped off because the wine was only ok

I edited and posted ch2 of WTBL&W entirely on my phone which may or may not have been a mistake. Getting the html formatting right wasn't too bad, but editing the splash image for twitter and bsky on photopea was uhhhhhhhhh a mistake. FAFO

FRIDAY AUGUST 9TH

My hotel had one of those fancy toto washlets so you bet your ass my butt was squeaky clean all weekend

My hotel also had a room service menu that had a bowl of oatmeal for $14 as an offering. Which. No.

I got an actual breakfast at a tiny hole in the wall crepe place staffed by a single old man, then trundled over to the con to pick up my badge at like 10ish. I was in line behind a cute couple in horimiya cosplay

The first panel I actually wanted to see wasn't until like 12 so I sat on the seawalk, finished my coffee, watched floatplanes, and replied to AO3 comments. 11/10 banger morning.

I watched an improv comedy D&D skit, which was fun, then traipsed down to the exhibition hall to do Some Shopping

MERCH REPORT: nobody really had heroaca stuff? Or if they did it was just the main kids. Still lots of people with HQ stuff, which I'm encouraged to see years after its ending. I'm happy with the pin selection this year tho, I picked up some nice stuff (but I think i will need to find additional capacity on my button collection because it's p much full oops)

BONUS COSPLAY REPORT: There also weren't really any heroaca cosplayers either, i saw like 1 shinsou, a couple bkgs, and a handful of people in nonspecific UA gym uniforms. Very strange. I did, however, see like 3 Nanamis within the span of 2 minutes on Saturday. (i don't even go here re jjk but he was the basic white boy cosplay of the year)

I spent like 2 hours in the exhibition hall and my brain hurt so I got poke for lunch, went back to the hotel to eat it, then took a nap

I went back for another couple panels on Friday night (a panel with vancouver VA graham hamilton, and another improv advice panel)

SATURDAY AUGUST 10TH

I went bra shopping on saturday morning because i accidentally overstuffed my backpack last week and zipped my bra into the zipper and tore the liner whilst trying to extract it. This is not relevant to the con, however it was an important part of my weekend

There wasn't anything I wanted to see at the con in the morning so I didn't get there until like 2:00 so I could line up for the cosplay contest. I'd never been to one before, and I don't really cosplay mself, but I've recently been watching some sarah spaceman videos, so I thought it would be fun to go see a contest for the first time.

On the schedule the contest is supposed to start at 2:30. There's like 6 down-and-backs of queueing space for people waiting to get in. When I got there around 2ish there were people milling about saying they'd cut the line. I loitered a bit longer until some admin looking folk went around telling people to disperse because queueing outside of the taped off area was a "fire hazard", and to come back at 3:00 when the event started. At this point, the line of people illicitly queued for this event wrapped probably halfway around the building, and the VCC is a Large Building.

I assume the delayed start time was probably due to pre-judging going long (thank u sarah spaceman for this education i now know how cosplay contests work), so i wasn't too fussy about that, but the fire hazard thing was a little silly to me because I'd been in the exhibition hall already which to me seemed like waaaaaay more of a fire hazard than a generally orderly line. Regardless. I bummed around on the seawalk for a bit and then went back just before 3 and managed to snag a seat. The contest itself ended up being really fun, and I'm glad i stuck around for it.

I went to another 3 panels on Saturday night, all 3 of which had similar queue capacity issues, and all 3 of which started late. Again, when the panels themselves started, they were all really fun, but logistically it seemed like they had some challenges. It does feel a bit silly to complain about though when I have literally nothing else to do that weekend tho haha

I attended the Philosophy of Science in FMA and Dr Stone (TIL epistemology is a word), a panel about adaptations that are superior to the source material, and...............yaoi bedtime stories. Which was a hoot.

SUNDAY AUGUST 11TH

Kind of a chill morning. Got some goodies at a bakery for breakfast / lunch / to bring home, checked out of the hotel, then trundled over to the con.

I went to a panel that was just a bunch of tables set up with colouring sheets and books and stuff and that was super what I needed. I coloured the eeveelutions from memory (and only forgot half of their colour schemes), and then there was a little time left so I also coloured in a cardcaptor sakura.

I thought about attending cosplay life drawing afterwards but ended up just heading home after colouring since I was kind of Done after a full weekend. There was another improv dragon ball tribute scheduled, but not until like 6:30pm and if I stuck around for that I wouldn't have gotten home today lol

No bus mishaps on the way home fortunately

ANYWAYS that's all folks thanks for reading about my dramatization of what was actually a pretty chill weekend.

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gwynndolin · 4 months

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Kitschke recs, D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L by Panchiko

I'm skipping around here for a few reasons, mainly that I couldn't really get into Liz Phair (sorry if you love her!), Sludgefest is fun and interesting as an art piece that I've already listened to, but I don't have much to say about it other than that, and 69 love songs is such a daunting task that I don't have time for AT THE MOMENT.... So I will reserve it for a later date, when I finally feel like I have the fortitude to spend enough time with that album. That being said, I've already listened to DEATH METAL quite a bit before now!

So, my main understanding of this album is that it was initially speculated to have been dropped as a part of sort of an ARG; something about it being a lost media album from the early 2000's that had been found and posted online, but it seems like they were actually a real band? Seems like the jury is still out on the matter, but I can totally understand why it feels like it would be a faked period piece.

It feels remarkably out of place for being an early 2000s album, very ahead of its time in a lot of places, though there are notes of some of the late 90's grunge and early 2000's production sensibilities, in the song "Stabilisers For Big Boys" for instance, the chorus with the blown out vocals over nothing but a simple drum machine and a almost imperceptible bass synth tremolo underneath feels very much like a Savage Garden track with just a touch of some early 2000s alternative grunge, thinking like, Finger Eleven or something like that.

That being said though, I think a decent comparison, maybe not necessarily tonally, but in similar "difference" to the time period would be Of Montreal, mainly in songs like "Laputa" (one of my personal faves from this album, though every time it starts playing I think its Bear by The Antlers for just a moment); the track is a little slower, has a good mix of physical and digital instrumentation and production, just a little bit strange lyrically... Definitely lump it together mentally with Cherry Peel. I also taste some hints of The Bends/ OK Computer on this album too, particularly in "Sodium Chloride", the outro especially reminding me of the outro to "No Surprises". Also, to go back to an earlier review, there's also some Portishead (or, generally, triphop) vibes in some of the songs that opt to use a drum machine, e.g. "Kicking Cars".

My first go around with this record was probably a year or two ago, I think probably around the time I started dipping out of my punk phase to start listening to some more alternative stuff; and started to dip into the 90's a bit more. It actually took me a while to get around to want to listen to 90's and early 2000's; as I was born in '96, a lot of the music from this time is just completely out of my purview for the most part, until about 2007 or so. And, around that time, when I had become conscious about music, I had remarkably insular tastes, I refused to enjoy anything on the radio. My Ipod had like, Linkin Park, one or two Queen songs, and I think an entire Jim Gaffigan comedy special. This kinda sensibility continued into my middle school years as well; I had gotten really obsessed with Motion City Soundtrack and the British Pop Rock quartet, Mcfly and refused to listen to just about anything else.

I think, even into my early 20's, even as I had really allowed my horizons to broaden, I had really held on to this notion that the early 2000's and 90's were an overall Bad Time for music, and just never bothered to really engage with anything from the era. Of course, that's totally not true! Although I will admit, some of the radio hits from then are still absolutely grating, it will be too soon if I hear a Five For Fighting song ever again.

Anyway, where I was going when I started listening to this album, I actually really didn't like it at all when I started listening to it. The point I was trying to make with how long it took me to listen to this era of music was that I had to start allowing myself to appreciate this particular genre, I was coming out of a different phase that was much faster paced and raw, and so the mellow nature of this album was kind of lost on me.

But now that I've had the chance to let it sit with me... I actually really kind of love this album. I wouldn't put it as a personal All Timer necessarily, I think it's lacking some of my particular sensibilities that really make me obsess over an album or a band, but it absolutely has a certain pull to it that kept me coming back, even after I had decided I didn't like it! Which is certainly a hallmark of a Good Album. And at the very least, it deserves to be placed along side the accolades of many of the other excellent albums from this era.

It seems like the digital/streaming releases of the album released with a few versions of the songs originally uploaded to /mu/ with the significant CD rot, which is a fun inclusion for sure, I'm a big fan of things like this. Brings to mind Brian Eno's quote from his book A Year With Swollen Appendices, "Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart." though, I don't think I've ever heard any examples of this kind of degradation. Perhaps something to look forward to once CD's fall even further out of the public consciousness, and right back in when the 30 year cycle loops around again.

Fave Tracks: "Laputa", "The Eyes of Ibad", "Sodium Chloride", "Kicking Cars"

Pretty solid 8/10 for D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L. I really expect this album to grow on me as time goes on. Sorry that this review was mostly just a digression on reminiscing about my experience with music in general and not any especially deep analysis! And I thank you for giving me the chance to really engage with it, as opposed to me just listening to it every now and again when my algorithm decides to show it to me again.

#music asks #kitschke #this is probably the single most fun i've had writing these reviews so far!#Spotify

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silvercap · 8 months

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Do you have any leon headcannons?

and maybe some krauser ones too?

I've got a few!! In no particular order:

Leon...

- Leon doesn't use a whooole lot of different products for his hair, but he stays loyal to one very specific brand and it's kind of expensive

- Also think he was a 2-in-1 shampoo kind of boy until he started working at the white house 😞 his hair is just nice like that tho. Thick and shiny

- Bite mark scar on his forearm from trying to push away a BOW who decided it looked more like a snack than defense

- Moles all over his body... and I mean everywhere.

- Suffers from a three-hit K.O. of sleep deprivation from working ridiculous hours (some self-imposed), insomnia, and a natural tendency to be a night owl. He's always tired, and if he feels safe somewhere he's constantly taking naps

- He's always thinking about something and has a tendency to get lost in his memories. I like to think he drinks just to stop thinking in endless loops of guilt and regret for a while :(

- Touchstarved as HELL. was joking the other day that he's the 'even held hostage it's nice to be held' meme lmaoo. Give him a hug, somebody??

- Listens to the most dad-rock-light-emo-90s-early-00s-linkin park-nirvana-alanis-morissette-foo-fighters-evanescence-nickelback music possible. Also Chevelle and The Police because I say so

- Tendency to be late to things on purpose, especially with the government

- Lingering nerve pain for a long time after Spain, and though it's mostly subsided after so many years it still flares up if he's pushing himself too hard

- Achy. So achy.

- Incredibly self-sacrificing. He would die to protect almost anyone and he cares very deeply about people even though he puts up a tough front :') not so much a headcanon as true, but it's important

- I feel like sometimes people can't tell if he's joking or not? Obviously he's got his silly one-liners and sarcasm, but I feel like he also likes deadpan humour and it throws off people who don't know him, maybe intentionally if he doesn't really trust them.

As for Krauser...

- He's such an asshole. Never knows when to shut the hell up and stop making sarcastic, biting little comments. I think he's just in love with the sound of his own voice at this point

- Strikes me as a middle child 🤔 maybe grew up with an older brother and a younger sister? Kind of a jock in high school, but also always a little bit antisocial

- Stubborn.

- Very practical. I don't think he really has much use for abstract or hypothetical discussion, he's a man of action. I think he enjoys following orders and being part of a scheme, too, helping to be part of a well-oiled machine

- Relentless drill sergeant, and again, a dickhead, but he really does care about his men

- He has this... assumption that everyone else is just as insane as he is, and doesn't see why people get caught up on small things. If there's something he wants to do, he's going to do it. He knows his strength and always has this intense desire to make himself better and better by constantly tackling challenges.

- He doesn't fail... until he does, and everything falls apart. His panic in Darkside Chronicles after he gets injured screams insecurity to me. The second his strength isn't enough, he feels weak and powerless and incredibly let down by his own inability to push through

- Arm injury in Operation Javier was super debilitating, maybe even to the point where he was advised to amputate it. Again, though, he's a stubborn SOB

- Very touchy. The kind of guy to always pat your shoulder or your back or knee. Just casually moves people out of the way, or readjusts their fighting stance while training without hesitation. If you're cuddling with him it's impossible to get away from his big heavy arms.

I think that's everything?? I'm always coming up with more ahaha but these are definitely the fundamentals :) Thanks for the ask!!

#headcanons #my fics #resident evil #asks #metaltango

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webbyghost · 2 months

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For the ask meme: 1. Your favorite hobbies 2. Favorite foods and 3. Favorite bands

Hiiiiii!

Fave hobbies- I love making stuff!!! Whether it's painting/drawing, or yarncraft in the form of plastic canvas, or even just trying new crafts like my very brief attempt at learning to arrange plastic flowers. I also like making abstract stuff like writing and worldbuilding and theorizing about my favorite fictional characters and worlds. And making OCs lol

Favorite foods vary so wildly depending on the time of year and whether or not I've had too much of it recently. I do love salads though. You can always change up what you put in them to make them taste different so I don't get as sick of them as fast as I do other foods! Also fruit. I loooooove fruit.

Favorite bands- omg. Ok. So one band that I've always loved is Linkin Park, but for different reasons in different times of my life. Same with Fall Out Boy! Ghost I only started listening to in the past few years but I love them!!! Gorillaz I've loved all my life, then there's also Hozier, The National, Florence + the Machine, Marina Diamandis, aaaand I'll cap off the list with Mystery Skulls lol. Mostly I really love songs/artists that inspire me in some way! :D

#thank you for the ask!!!

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things-about-cars-in-posts · 11 months

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favorite band/artist?

Sheesh. Complicated one.

You see, my music tastes are, to put it mildly, rather varied. I think it showed in my music recommendation post and the post that further explored one of those artists, but to further illustrate, my library includes:

Earth, Wind & Fire

New Kids On The Block's Jordan Knight's first solo single

Dubstep band Hadouken!’s Lana Del Rey cover

A mashup of Wham! and a fishing anime

A Japanese bilingual melodic punk rock band's two songs about bowling

80s remixes of Justin Bieber songs

A Japanese "punk ska and melodic hardcore band"'s cover of Scatman’s World

A 140+ song Beatles remix collection, featuring such gems as "Octopus's 3D Garden", "I Saw Her Yankin' There" and "Help!" (suspicious)

A eurobeat female duo of rotating Italian and British members’ Abracadabra-sampling track about falling in love with a banana

A remix of Azumanga Daioh’s Sata Andagi scene I retrieved from a porn site reupload

Moldovan folk punk band and folk musician duo’s collab about celebrating the reopening of a railroad

The soundtrack of Pictionary for the NES

A mashup of AVICII, Rick Astley and Chumbawumba

An 80s pop Linkin Park remix

Black Sabbath covers by The Cardigans (of Lovefool fame)

JT's solo debut

A Flock Of Seagulls (of I Ran (So Far Away) fame)

One (1) DJ Khaled song

A 2011 My Little Pony-themed song by then commentary youtuber

(And I beg each and every one of the people who read this list and thought "Okay that one cannot possibly be good" to hop in my askbox and allow me to prove them wrong.)

But let's go through bands and artists I've not posted about before.

Two Door Cinema Club Just out of statistics. I can prove I played I Can Talk over a hundred times and I can tell you any number under two hundred is underselling it. There is genuinely some problem with my brain that that intro slots into perfectly.

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Oh also all the rest of their first album this comes from is this great too, and if you ask me what a perfect album sounds like I will tell you it's not that far off their second album.

OK Go Now, I like the music. Actually, I'd left my two guitars alone for years until an easy OK Go song made me think "Oh, maybe I can play this" and realize that rather than -as I had prior- just play the music I'd been taught I could actually teach myself to play the music I was listening to, which snowballed into playing more OK Go songs and then it expanded and now I have a ukulele, a bass, a third guitar I need to merge with that bass (it's complicated), a fourth "guitar" (it's complicated) on the way, a Casio calculator/synth (it's complicated), a melodica, a launchpad and a kazoo. Whoops. But really, all you need to be sold on OK Go is see two of their videos. One to find out what they're like (and you're already good on that front because you have visited the internet ever and have thus seen Here It Goes Again aka "The Treadmill Video" aka what when posted to YouTube upon its CEO begging them became the biggest video of all time) and another to find out that no the first one was not a one-off fluke. I am serious, go click that link, it takes you to a playlist of their videos and each one is crazier than the last. I mean they played a song with a car. A song. That has a guitar solo. With a car. Have you seen the name of this channel.

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Ah, right, the name of this channel. I guess I have to say a thing about that car now. Uhhh this video was sponsored by Chevrolet to promote the Aveo which, despite being badged as a Chevrolet, like many of the more Europe-oriented Chevrolets was made by the automotive branch of Daewoo, brand General Motors picked up after the Daewoo conglomerate (then the second largest in South-Korea which may as well be called Samsungland) went bankrupt in '99 over almost $90B modern dollars in debt. Its founder Kim Woo-chong (because Lord knows the "woo" in Daewoo did not stand for "woo what a great car") earned a ten year sentence, but I feel they focused too much on the wrong guy. The REAL criminal is whoever penned Daewoo cars.

A good person doesn't do this on purpose.

Owl City I have too few of his songs, but I absolutely love how comically upbeat he is. He is so precious. If c: walked this Earth. I mean "Golf and alcohol don't mix and that's why I don't drink and drive / Because, good grief, I'd knock out my teeth and have to kiss my smile goodbye". Protect this man at all costs. Also one time I saw the Fireflies video after what must have been a good decade and you know when you feel near crying? I adored that song when I was a kid and I was right.

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Liquido European one-hit wonders - and not even "people know them just for one song", not even "people don't know them and just know the song"; I found you can tell people the name of their hit and they won't know what you're talking about. But hum the riff and infallibly, invariably any single person in my country (and, in my limited experience, the rest of Europe) will go "Ooooooh, that one". And to be fair, those guys did stumble on one of the most memorable riffs in modern history.

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Not saying this is a hidden gem of a band, I am sure some bigger music nerd would stamp a big fat "SEEN BEFORE" on all their stuff, beyond some enjoyable splashes of "I wonder how much of this is them leaning into it" cheese (yes, even more than that video) - but I've still got their whole discography including all the B-sides, because to me, so what? It's good music and I'll treat it like it. What's the point of praising "groundbreaking", "genre defining" works and then glossing over those inhabiting the ground they broke and making the genres they defined? When I eat bread I don't complain that it doesn't innovate or set itself apart from the rest of the genre, so as long as my music doesn't bore me why should those be problems there? I feel like people have a problem in general separating their enjoyment of a work from its artistic merit. I'm digressing.

The Beatles If you ask me "What's your favorite number of pant legs?" I'm not going to answer five because two would be cliché.

And now we get to the final answer, the real answer, in such a league of its own it deserves to be separated from the rest via a Read More.

I lied, this is under a Read More because it's an entire fucking dissertation. Your fault for asking.

Caparezza I've spent well over a decade of my life mulling over his lyrics to the point me and my ex-flatmate played this game where she told me a random word and I'd try to find it in his lyrics (e.g. the first word of your ask, "favorite", was used in the second verse of the sixteenth track of his sixth album, yes I am neurodivergent why do you ask), and still it happens that as I am going through my everyday life I happen to accrue some information and slam my forehead going "Oh my God THAT'S what he meant there". His songs are more layered, more deep, more thoughtful, more cutting, more witty, more clever than most prose you see around and still he manages to play with his words and rhymes with incredible dexterity.

Take his last record, Exuvia - actually, take the previous record Exuvia picks up from, Prisoner 709:

Its name not only introduces the theme of imprisonment, but also of dilemmas and juxtapositions, since the prisoner's number, 709, stands for the dilemma about the number of the record: it's the 7th in his discography as Caparezza, but the 9th if one also counts the two shit records he made under his previous name Mikimix (we don't talk about those). Its tracklist, indeed, while being as typical for him incredibly varied in topics (from religions to his affinity with Ludwig II of Bavaria to "I'm not [x], BUT-" types) is arranged as chapters of a journey through an imprisonment (The Crime, The Punishment, The Weight, The Psychologist, The Letter, The Visit, The Yard Time, The Torture, The Revolt, The Guard, The Infirmary, The Window, The Evasion, The Hiding) and associated to dilemmas - for instance, as the record is about his feeling imprisoned in his body and in his role, the first song -and first chapter, The Crime- is indeed Prosopagnosia (i.e. face blindness), a track about him no longer recognizing himself in the artistic reputation he built himself, with the dilemma being between "Michele", his name, and "Caparezza", his rap name. Oh, and if you also want a taste of the impressive wordplay, well, count the letters of those two names. Yep. Every single one of the 16 tracks is a dilemma is between a 7 letter word and a 9 letter word. Because of course it is.

So now, let's get to the last record, Exuvia.

Nah, the pop-up edition's cover fucks way harder.

That's more like it.

Exuvia is the exoskeletal remains left behind by ecdysozoans after ecdysis, i.e. when creatures like insects and crustaceans develop a new exoskeleton and crawl out of their old one, as this record starts from his escaping from the anguish compounded through all his previous records and through a deep analysis of his past, his self, his surroundings, his fate, condensing it all and moving on to a new self, a new birth, a new shell. (Understand how I feel when people say the greatest rapper of all time is one whose greatest record is called "Damn" because the songs made him go "Damn" and whose biggest song is "Biggie Smalls' Juicy but this time about me".)

Well, in the second track of it, about running away from the dire situation of hatred, decay and persecution described in the first track, he says, and I paraphrase,

I give it all up, I'm dying, I retreat - Caporetto plus Waterloo Dripping and smelling like my head was in a station's toilet- oh.

introducing the desperation and hopelessness of military defeats and immediately following it up with an image whose comedic nature makes a contrast so stark as to surprise even him while still, being a reference to the military's hazing and bullying, latching back to the line before. While the prose I represent it with is deliberately poor, the concept behind the words is brilliant enough that it would be a good line if it didn't rhyme at all. And yet the original lines rhyme for twenty syllables. TWENTY.

Thing is, you can be as clever as you want, but the underlying music, you know, it can't be clever, it can just be good or bad. One would think. And yet the music is not just good but full of clever, witty samples and ideas that don't just reinforce the track's mood but tie the instrumental inextricably into the lyrics' themes, like Larsen (the track about his tinnitus, which he calls by audio feedback's technical name of Larsen effect) using high-pitched synths and emphasizing cymbals, Prisoner 709's title track being 79bpm (I wager 709bpm was a bit non-doable), House Credibility's instrumental featuring intercom buzz and cowbells reminiscent of cookware, or, well, everything in Exuvia's second single. See, that song is about the choice he faces between the story of Beethoven, who despite all his challenges kept devoting himself to music until the day he died, or that of Mark Hollis, lead of Talk Talk, who despite all the fame peaced out to focus on his private life - and the entire instrumental is devoted to that concept: the verses' reference Für Elise, the chorus Such A Shame, and the bridge I Believe In You; and when you tun into the background choirs you find they are rhythmically repeating "I don't know".

You start to get a clue why there's three years between his records.

So if his songs are so fucking good, why is he not famous? Well, he is! Except for his first album which no one really noticed (fairly so in my opinion - while I like a few songs I feel he really got going in his second one), the following records did really well for someone with such dense content: his third record has been certified gold! And all the others platinum. Some twice. Never since the first one did a record of his peak under 5 in the charts, and he's got 8 gold singles, 3 platinums and a double platinum. And don't get me started on the shows.

(That's me in the background!) Hell, he's even been on the cover of Billboard! So why've you never heard of him? Well, see the word next to Billboard.

Yep. The man, Michele Salvemini, is an Italian born and raised and, like any proper Italian, doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so pretty much all the English you'll hear in his music are the handful of English features, like Michael Franti, DMC (!) and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley, with which he made a song about Italy's emigration crisis.

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Emigration that is also internal, from the underdeveloped, falling aparty and criminality-run south of Italy to where all the industries are, the richer and we-pretend-it's-not-criminality-run north. And since he's from Apulia, Italy's heel (his rap name in fact means "curly head" in Apulian dialect), he's made a song about its woes too, featuring the music of the tarantella, Apulia's traditional dance. (I don't know why y'all add an A in front. It's fucking "Puglia", y'all.) Here's an imperfect translation with a couple of helpful explainers to the asterisked terms over in the video's description.

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It depresses me every time I think about it that all the English speakers I know will never be able to fully appreciate his lyrical brilliance. But oh well. At least y'all can appreciate the music... so fuck it, have that song whose music I yapped about so much. You'll hear the choirs in the background say "non so" (I don't know)... and a bunch more Italian words (translated here for those on desktop who want to follow along).

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Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

#does it show #does it at all show #that you happened to tap into another one of my passions #music #chevrolet aveo #daewoo tacuma

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clovercalloway · 10 months

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We Best Love: Episode 2, "Why are we here, just to suffer?"

ON THE PREVIOUS FIRST EPISODE:

Well, damn, now I have no idea what'll happen next. I usually expect something like this to happen near the end of any romance, but they just went and did it.

Will they reach the second base in this episode, then? Who knows.

They already kissed, now we just wait for that sweet tension.

I swear, the more I watch this intro the more gay it looks. Like, I can feel the tension in the air.

Meanwhile, Shi De is a hopeless romantic, he can't be more obvious with that monologue. Like, it's impossible.

He keeps saying things like "look at me" as if that isn't the gayest thing to ever say in any fictional show when you refer to another guy.

[EAW: Now I know what this reminded me of. Warning: kinda MHA spoilery but w/o context , @bossman ]

Idk which one is gayer, I'll be honest

Shi De, you're the one that kissed him underwater OUT OF NOWHERE. Are you really in the position of asking that?

"What's wrong with you? Why did you kiss me?" TELL HIM, SHU YI!

He says that Shu Yi wasn't coming up. Boy, that's the lamest excuse I've heard. Please just follow Bruno Mars advice and say this instead.

Now he's asking about Yu Xin, like he's tired of Shu Yi pining after her for so long (the jealousy, guys... Alexa, play Heather). But Shu Yi is all "you stalkin' me?".

I know he asked that as a joke.

THAT WAS A RETHORICAL QUESTION, BUT SHI DE SAID GO BIG OR GO HOME!

Is Shu Yi fucking serious?

"So you can defeat me". Sweetie, that's not-

Not the reaction I expected. Like, I used to watch Ladybug but this guy's too much. How is he somehow more oblivious than Adrien? Is barely episode two. Lord, please don't tell me it gets worse. I'll need ice cream if he starts acting more dense than he already is.

Anyways, Gao Shi De tries to comfort him but Shu Yi tells him to get lost and our boy obeys.

He went back into the water, istg...

I can only picture Linkin Park in the backhead of his mind playing very loudly. My son is in his sad arc.

He's being very dramatic and thinking "boy, I need to get over it".

Well, he actually says a lot more, trying to be deep and all that, but I was very distracted by his dramatic self.

Tho he's right that it's worse when the unrequited love is a friendship. Little does he know, for Gao Shi De the unrequited love is hitting hard.

Oh no

He seems into it

Well, idk what'll happen next, but whatever it is, please don't let this pretty lady be a rebound, what you need is to dwell in your own feelings, even if it doesn't feel right at the moment, because it's better to learn how to live with those emotions and then manage them, that way you will be mature enought to fall in love in a better- who am I kidding, his ass is not listening

Fang Zheng Wen tries to talk to him, but then Yu Xin appears and invites them for lunch, but Shu Yi says he "doesn't wanna be a third wheel".

I feel you, man. You don't have to force yourself to be in that uncomfortable situation.

HERE COMES THE BOY TO THE RESCUE

It's a green flag if someone notices what you're trying to say without saying it. He was uncomfortable and at least someone not only noticed but also did SOMETHING about it.

Like, no hate to Zheng Wen but it's obvious the atmosphere is not pleasant for your friend, you should say or do something.

Speaking of being proactive, Shi De went and showed him a recording of him at the pool, in a low moment as we know he got a taste of that unrequited love.

Shu Yi is again asking the right questions ("why do you follow me all the time", "what do you want") that would give him a clear answer if he wasn't so dense.

The nerve of this guy. He's blackmailing him with the video.

"You have to be on-call and obey me." Sounds fruity, LET'S GO!

Modern marriage proposal, they call it.

So the only way to break this deal off is for Shu Yi to beat him, anything counts. Shi De tells him that and Shu Yi looks excited.

"I'll beat you hard" This isn't getting less gayer by the second.

"Tomorrow in my house" I'll count those as dates.

Skip to the next morning and now they're arguing over going on a car or a MRT.

Bro is blackmailing him with the video again, so they end up being late and Shu Yi pretends to be mad about it.

You are not beating the stalker allegations.

"You have it so you can put pranks on me?" Why are we here, just to suffer?

While Shu Yi keeps being his oblivious self, Shi De invites him for breakfast.

Class is boring and Shu Yi falls asleep on his shoulders, so adorable.

Still, you'll have to lend him your notes, man.

Classmate over there is telling Shi De to wake him up and our boy refuses. Let him have this moment, dude.

"But he's not even from this departam-" "Shut up"

After class, Shu Yi suddendly wants to have lunch.

Well, Yu Xin is there and Gao Shi De can tell that his boy is not feeling good.

So now both of them are hiding, but

"How long do you have to hide from her?" He's not wrong

Obviously is gonna be awkward but is better to do it sooner rather than latter or it'll be worse and he'll end up losing his friends without wanting to.

And Shu Yi knows this, but he says it still hurts. And that's totally reasonable

But then "if she finds out, we can't be friends anymore"

No, man. If you can get pass that, you'll just have an even stronger friendship. If not, she at least will know it and will try to explain how you're still important to her, even if her love isn't the same as the love you say you feel. The only thing actually puting your friendship in danger is the dreaded miscommunication.

"Why do I tell you this" Cause he's your future husband

And, of course, because is nice to say things. Bottling up your feelings will only hurt you more on the long run, you need to face them head on.

Gao Shi De agrees with me, a total w

"You can't just put [love] back into the shelf"

Then he says Shi De wouldn't understand. Boy do I have news for you...

Shi De says he DOES know and Shu Yi is curious

This is too much. This is Wei Ying levels of oblivious.

Shu Yi, stop ruining my ship, you're part of it.

Shi De's classmate keeps looking at him like that meme of someone pointing with their eyebrow raised and a big rainbow at the side.

Wait, I had an idea

Sorry, I had to

Sharing a meal is fruity activity, says science (at this point it's just me thinking these are dates, because if they're not, I'm even more curious about how a REAL date between these two would be).

Well, now the classmate, the same one from before, keeps butting in and acting as if this couple's existence is a personal offense.

But his dislike seems more inclined towards Shu Yi. [EAW: is this guy 🌈 too?]

Now our main couple and their closed ones (even tho the guy with no name may only be a classmate) are all in the same table, and this dude keeps making passive aggressive comments, but Shu Yi bro defends him and says that Zhou Shu Yi doesn't lose, not against Shi De, and if he did, it was on purpose.

Thanks for exposing him, man.

And guess who comes in

Welp, a lot has happened in just one meal, right?

Of course, Shu Yi leaves immediatly. And Shi De follows.

At an arcade, Shu Yi's friend is asking him why are they so close now? Is it another prank for Shi De?

No, my man, but you should ask Gao Shi De, at least he knows more about his own feelings.

Suddendly, and idea.

Did you really never think of this? Were you so caught up in trying to rile him up that you didn't actually do any basic competition? You really are something else.

Playing montage!

This is even funnier because for Gao Shi De, I bet he shares my mind and totally thinks of this as a date

Meanwhile, Shu Yi

"Your days are numbered, you little-"

Shu Yi does his litle finger gun at Shi De and I'm like don't worry, you already shot him, just look at how his eyes are hearts when he's with you.

Welp, we have a flustered Shi De.

It's obvious who keeps winning again and again. But in case it wasn't clear with episode 1, it's Shi De.

Shu Yi leaves, ready to be "tortured" again tomorrow, and Shi De is totally smug because he got what he wanted, at least. A nice time with future bf.

Cute aggression, they call it. Typical of future life partners.

Perfect opportunity to commit theft, says Shu Yi, but he's caught instantly.

Both begin to wrestle for the phone and for being caught and then somehow this happens.

The way I had to pause (the video and myself) after this. Gods, my mind is not pure and I'm going to hell.

Also, I snorted hella hard.

Yu Xin is me fr

I know it's basically the same scene, but this is just too perfect for a meme

Yu Xin apologizes saying "I thought you and Gao Shi De were together". Give them a few months. If it depends on Shi De, it could be weeks. If it's on Shu Yi's hand, maybe we'll need like three years at minimum.

It's usually "from their limited perspective, it can be seen as fruity" but man, from my non limited perpsective as someone who witnessed those moments, this is still fruity as f.

Yu Xin has the right energy but not the right idea and keeps insiting that Shu Yi confesses. Shi De gets tired of watching this uncomfortable circus and leaves with Shu Yi.

"Are they really not dating?" You both are his friends and know him well enough, I do not. And even I think this is very very rainbowish.

Well, Yu Xin, they are on a date so does this answer your question?

"Why do you add spicy if you can't take it?" "Cause you like it" This is a gem.

"I just know you too well" It's nice to know that at least from Shi De's perspective this is a rivalry more than an enemies relationship.

Shu Yi thanks him for getting him out of there, and says that Yu Xin and Zheng Wen are really compatible and make a perfect couple.

"What would you do if the one you love loves another person" says Shu Yi, having dealt with something similar to rejection but accepting it.

After eating they go out but Shu Yi starts feeling bad and Shi De takes him to a doctor.

"Try to separate them and take adantage of it" says Shi De and Shu Yi gulps hard. Try to run but you won't get far, kid.

So that was episode 2! Aside from the doctor being a bummer and not letting me and Shu Yi live (or well, die), it was fun. They're not even in an official relationship yet, but sure feels like it!

"If you want to die keep eating spicy hotpot" Hey doc, I'll die but I'll die happy, ok?

Shu Yi, man, like, besides the obvious hints through the whole episode, he literally kissed you. Like, how dense can you be?

And to @bitacrytic, oml, thanks a lot! Tumblr was being a b*tch and didn't let me answer your comment. And yeah, so far I'm invested. But also busy. I hope to finish the post for episode 3 sooner.

The most probable case is that I'll be uploading these blind reactions weekly, but only if I'm less busy those weeks. [Jokes on me, adult life is hard.]

Anygays, hope you enjoyed this. (I surely did.)

#clover reacts to we best love #we best love #clover watches series

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