#trauma on a t-shirt meme

[fandomfaeofveryfewf4cks]

Character A: B, are you wearing-

Character B: The Chanel boots? Yeah I am. *poses for the camera*

A: ...I was going to ask, are you wearing your most traumatic experience on a t-shirt?

B (who is, in fact, wearing their most traumatic experience on a t-shirt): ...Yeah, I am. *poses for the camera again*

A: Who brought a camera in here!?

Inspired by two memes and this post:

[cult-of-the-eye]

Mag 81 A Guest for Mr Spider

FUCK FORMER HEAD ARCHIVIST

Wait I need to check the timelines - this was 2 days after leitner's death

New spooky music???

My man is so fucking dramatic I love him so much "grand of sand behind my eye" love the way he speaks

Yeah FUCK JURGEN LEITNER

Omg the greying hair is canon??

Child in the 90s makes him at most 27 GOD DAMN. I was imagining like mid 30s...can you imagine a fucking 27 yr old using words like "ilk" when talking to you

Oh shit he's an orphan poor guy

Yeah ok a lot of his personality seems to make sense if you realise he was raised by his grandma

You know those memes that are like people raised by their grandparents are exceptionally polite but in a brisk way, talk fancy and are super posh? Yeah that's him.

Getting such neurodivergent vibes

Yeah he sounds like a main character from the start Jesus Christ he's such a kid who got traumatised and then grows up to be a horror protagonist vibes

My First Leitner lol like kids had to be introduced to them at a young age like those my first toys

He's so funny I can just imagine him as an 8 yr old getting super like affronted at this like how dare my grandma think I am of subpar intelligence he's such a little bitch from the start

"The eponymous Mr spider" even talking about his childhood trauma he's busting out the vocabulary

Fuck that story actually kinda rattled me I had my hand over my mouth in shock for most of it

I think it was the bit where the horsefly brought his son and they were both crying that got me, I could definitely imagine it scaring an 8 yr old

The way it drags out as well, with the pages of the same scene it really heightens the suspense

Is his childhood bully someone we should keep track of?? Love how he says Michael probably cause he sees him as a bully lol

It's interesting how despite him bullying him (quite badly seeing as though he beat him up) he's still like yeah but he saved my life and that means he deserves to be remembered

My bro didn't save your life on purpose, he was just trying to make it worse and happened to come to a terrible fate cause of that

I guess underneath it all he was still a kid who watched someone die, knowing they'd get eaten by a fucking spider, he still held him in some regard

The way he specified the guy was his bully even after he was being eaten though lol

He was desperate to get the book back? That's a leitner thing I guess, the book makes you want to keep it so it can finish whatever it wanted to do to you

On my relisten (which I will do once I've finished the series I'm sure of it), I'll have to look out for any reaction of leitners name

I wonder why Jon didn't react more to Carlos vittery's statement, like it must've terrified him? I saw a post a while back explaining Jon's thoughts and IT WAS GENIUS it was like of course he doesn't react, he must be terrified that someone knew about his experience and somehow did this to mess with him or it was a joke and he can't let anyone know that the Head Archivist is not Good at This ugh it's so good I'll tag it if I can find it

AHHHHH HE REGRETS DISMISSING THE OTHER STATEMENTS AHHHHHH

HE FINALLY ADMITS THAT HE NEEDS HELP WE LOVE THIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT YES YOU FUCKING DO BITCH.

yeah at least he's right about Elias killing leitner

GEORGIE THE EX GIRLFIEND

ITS SO WEIRD TO SEE HIM ACTUALLY NICE TO SOMEONE WOW HIS VOICE CHANGES SLIGHTLY AS WELL HES LESS ACADEMIC

THE ADMIRAL

Awwww he's so cute with georgie

GHOST PODCAST GHOST PODCAST

THE WHAT THE GHOST T SHIRT IS CANON???? AHH THATS SO CUTE

Can he not go back to his own flat?? Did he bring all his clothes to the archive and then subsequently leave them there? Does he even have a flat??

God Georgie is so nice I would kill for her

It's so funny that an apparent supernatural cynic dated a ghost podcaster

WOW SEASON 3 OFF TO AN AMAZING START I CANT WAIT TO KEEP LISTENING IM GONNA TELL MY THERAPIST ABOUT THIS TOMORROW!!!

[zinovi768]

Oh shit forgot to post this over here-

I did the “Draw your character wearing their worst trauma on a T-shirt” meme and it's way to funny to me-

Enjoy Raph with his own death on his T-shirt <3

Heheheheh (next chapter is coming soon I swear)

[absolutely-normal-about-x]

Very normal family-

Listen I know I’m late for the trauma t-shirt meme but let me have this-

Brook belongs to @bruggle

[onepiecepositivityproject]

Okay your blog is SO COOL! I love your Zosan art so much they way you draw Sanji and Zoro (and everyone else) is very precious to me I want to hug them to death!!!! Your trauma t-shirt meme still haunts me you're a f*cking genius, keep up on making us laugh and suffer ily pal

@pinyeti

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

There was an old Tumblr meme from ages past and I'm not even gonna try to find it because I only ever saw it in screenshots on other apps like 5+ years ago but. It was a photo of an ad for a Christian dating site (maybe like an off-brand Christian Mingle idk) with a pretty average-looking middle aged/older lady on it and she's making kind of an awkward facial expression. And people were joking about it and saying shit like "Haha sign me up" and every time I think about it I cry

Because often ads like that don't use models, it's in the terms of service that they can use photos from members' accounts, and this definitely looked like just some random person's photo that they had taken at a mall.

And I think about how that older lady was lonely but was putting herself out there and probably felt pretty in the photo to have used it and then it got put on an ad and people made t-shirts of it and shit making fun of her and it genuinely makes me so so so upset and I hope so desperately that she never saw those memes. I know people might say "well it was a Christian dating app so she was probably a homophobe/zealot and deserved it" but like, I have my fair share of religious trauma from being raised in a Christian household, but nobody deserves to be made to feel ashamed for having the audacity to think they might be lovable. I think about her feeling foolish for thinking she could put herself out there, that anyone could find her lovable.

I think about it every so often, and it's just a random tidbit of cruelty that always makes me cry.

[ieatnomnom9823]

stupid headcanons no one asked for and make 0 sense

me and my friend enjoy in making the most shit headcanons to exist so i'm gonna share some of them bc why the fuck not?

princess kenny is an amazon box

kyle only knows how to play football because of how much he kicks Ike

cartman vibes to this video: https://youtu.be/PDJLvF1dUek?list=RDgBpdSlgR5qM (thats not mine btw)

butters has a MLP figure he literally sleeps with and treats it like his own child

everyone is sort of worried about butters obsession to that toy

the plural of kenny is in fact not kennies, but kennys

kyle not only kicks babies, but he also throws them

butters genuineley thinks the rickroll is a banger

kenny and cartman have the weirdest fucking pinterest feed *cough* maid catboys, shitty t-shirts, those random-ass pictures with text over them, like memes kinda but not with a very specific color text and font, the most random stickers and flags like bibble idk they really like bibble though also this totallyyyy isn't inspired by my feed *cough*

stan dedicates his LIFE to minecraft parkour. i'm talking watching those low guality parkour things with screenshits from the interent and he is a GOD at hypixel housing parkour (i came up with this because i have hypixel parkour open rn)

kenny is #1 lemon demon fan. i will NEVER change my mind about this.

craig literally sleeps with a fucking metal pipe.

instead of warming glasses of milk by pouring milk into a cup and microwaving the cup, he literally puts the whole fucking CARTON IN THE MICROWAVE AND THEN PUTS IT IN A CUP

instead of repenting your sins, cartman repeats his sins ( i just really needed to say that phrase today)

kyle is so weezer coded

stan's the type of mf to say "chat" instead of "guys"

anytime someone makes a dirty joke butters just akwardly smiles politely bc he doesn't get it but he's too embarrassed to ask what it meant

i found a picture this is exactly cartman and kenny's feed:

(that was my first screenshot since cleanig my files out other then the random bunny thing i drew in class cuz i was fucking boerd and had no idea what was going on)

stuart, randy, gerald, and steven (or whatever the fuck their name is) are literally besties but HERE ME OUT

randy and gerald are the silly besties like kyle and stan BUT stuart and steven (what the fuck is that man's name) are ALSO besties BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE IN TFBW IN THE STRIP CLUB THEIR WATCHING LADIES DANCE TOGETHER AND THEIR GETTING DRUNK TOGETHER THEIR LITERALLY BEsTIES OMG

craig has flying powers

butters thinks skibidi toilet is peak comedy and that is why everyone hates him (except for literally like 2 people)

why the fuck is his name dougie

FUCKING HOW IS CARTMAN EVEN CAPABLE OF HAVING CLOSE FRIENDSHIPS AND BUTTERS DESERVES BETTER

"life goes onyonyonyonyonyonyonyon" is literally cartman's theme song after trying to kill everyone with some shitty plan he got from watching Megamind or something

kyle literally has trauma from burgers he will NOT eat any burger if you paid him fucking 56,000,000 bucks

kyle is so an elephant he's literally an elephant that's his spirit animal

tweek is literally a turtle idk how i can't describe the vibe but he is ik he's SO not a turtle but he just... idk he is

kenny is a fucking rat i literally have art of me bullying him and calling him a rat

butters is either a bunny or a cat of a duck he's just silly like that

cartman isn't a duck he's a goddamn angry goose

stan is a bear or like a giraffe or something idk ik he's the main character but i don't think about him that much for me

butters is literally in choir guys

HOLY SHIT STAN'S AN ORANGE CAT

craig is the most beaustiful majestic dragon to ever exist

craig's literally my favorite character if you couldn't tell

kenny is too scared to eat cheetos so he eats takis instead

literally everyone loves megamind

[sol1056]

still dead, though

so this is potentially an unpopular opinion, given the love I’ve seen across my dashboard. but I finally (it took like four months, y’all) got to the top of the wait list at my local library to read Gideon the Ninth.

which was a great book (for the most part), don’t get me wrong. Gideon’s voice just sparkles, and even the assorted memes littering scattered through the story didn’t detract (too much). and yes, a baby dyke who glories in attractive women and never once feels compelled to either a) justify her attraction or b) put men down or even c) put other women down (at least not without reason), yeah. totally deserves the kudos. and after starting solidly and undeniably enemies, it’s a believable shift to almost-lovers.

although technically all you actually get is an i-love-you exchange.

that’s it. a paragraph later (not even a whole page!) we get hit with Bury Your Gays (plus some Vasquez Always Dies if we’re counting). 

it somehow just does not help my reaction that the second book is “all about a [queer] character grieving painfully to the point of disassociation.” I’ve read this book, seen this movie, got the t-shirt, lost it all in the lawsuit, and somehow lived to tell the tale. A now-solo lesbian character whose mental state is now so shredded by grief that they’ve effectively gone insane? fuck, you could not write to the letter of the trope harder if you goddamn tried.

I went digging anywhere I could think, to find spoilers. does the dead lesbian come back? was it all a fake-out? she does come back, right? far as I can tell, there are vague-slash-ambiguous comments from the author that the character “is still around!” or words to that effect. and from reader reviews, it appears the character’s “still around” is that her ghost lives on in the survivor’s mind. she apparently makes a ghostly cameo in the 2nd book, and the third book is about a completely different character? idk. I saw no “she’s back!” celebration. what I saw read a lot like when fans are clinging to a few passages and hoping that means eventually it’ll all pay off for them, if they just keep believing.

so. great story, still dead.

oh yes, I’m sure you want to tell me that it works this way for the story! my sweet summer child, it has always “worked this way for the story.” the defense has never been “the author killed off yet another queer”. it’s always been “that’s what the story required” as if the story is some sentient creature that eats dictionaries and spits out cruelty.

don’t waste my time hiding behind passive voice. when an author takes it all the way to the i-love-you then kills the queer, and follows by making the surviving queer go insane, they’re not avoiding the trope, they’ve actively hunted it down and forced it to go to prom with them.

at least have the fucking decency to be honest about that.

and I understand that in a world where there’s just uncounted multitudes of stories with queer characters and the happy endings far outweigh the grieving/insane lesbians mourning their dead, we could possibly, eventually, have a story that honestly explores grief and loss and not have it slam down hard on the big red button of sixty-plus years of literary trauma.

but we don’t yet live in that world, and I am sick to death of authors playing the trope word-for-word but batting their eyelashes like they’re special enough to be exempt. how could anyone be mad at them, their intentions are good, they’re friends with their fans, y’know, now you’re just overreacting.

look, I get you didn’t wake up this morning planning to run over a pedestrian, but you still hit me, and all your good intentions don’t make it not hurt.

le sigh.

I really wish I’d been spoiled before I’d started, so I would’ve known to skip. these stories are never enough to offset the suckerpunch at the end.

[gohandinhand]

11, 15, anddd 27 for the ask meme

tossing me some hard ones! 😭

11. anything from your childhood you’ve held on to? just pictures, anxiety, and trauma 😎

15. rank the methods of death: freezing, burning, drowning i want to say freezing is the most peaceful and least painful, but i fucking hate being cold??? okay final answer in order of preference... freezing, drowning, burning. (unless burning can be interpreted as dying from smoke inhalation, in which case burning, freezing, drowning)

27. what’s your favorite or go-to outfit? well i spend most of my days in pajamas/comfy loungewear (wfh privilege) but when I have to leave the house I almost always throw on a pair of jeans, solid color wool t-shirt, and either a flannel or wool sweater on top depending on the weather. also depending on season shoes are birkenstocks or boots. (or wellies & rain jacket as top layer, because pnw)

[perfectly-intoxicated]

ORIGINAL: LOW ACTIVITY

KILLER: ACTIVE

———

Warning!

This blog will contain topics related but not limited to: violence, gore, trauma, emotional/psychological/physical abuse, child endangerment, and more. Be safe.

———

Sorry for the wait. Did you still want that drink?

name . . . hannah ajax

alias . . . ann

age . . . 30

birthdate . . . may 21, 1994

gender . . . female

orientation . . . pansexual

nationality . . . american

birthplace . . . tampa, florida

hair . . . auburn, loose curls, just longer than shoulder-length

eyes . . . emerald green

height . . . 5’4

wardrobe . . . white v-neck t-shirt, jeans, sneakers

RULES:

Absolutely no discrimination or rude behavior against me or others will be tolerated by any means. This includes but is not limited to: bullying, harassment, offensive comments, hateful speech, toxic behavior, aggression, bigotry, discriminatory language, and slurs of any variety. You will receive a warning before being blocked if you continue with said behavior.

Do NOT interact with this blog if you are a minor. You will receive one warning before being blocked if you insist.

Please be aware that I have a life outside of Tumblr. I ask that you be patient while I reply to your asks/submissions. You’re free to send me a message if you’d like if you believe I’ve forgotten or so that I can inform you about any delays.

This blog will contain multi-shipping across universes, so no drama starting.

TAGS:

negroni (reblogged)

cosmopolitan (rp threads)

old fashioned (ooc post)

margarita (answered asks)

sway with me (ask memes)

a blaze of glory (lore)

[sunshineprincejeremyknox]

8, 10, 11, and 15 for the pride asks meme pls 😘

8. describe your gender without using any words traditional related to gender:

the rocketman soundtrack; hobbitcore; foxes; decorative daggers; sunsets; blanket nest; galaxies;

10. something that gives me gender euphoria:

t-shirts with the sleeves cut off

11. favorite piece of LGBT media?

I am 3/3 on just wanting to say Rocketman omg; but also...

books: Winter's Orbit (Everina Maxwell); The Tarot Squence (KD Edwards); White Trash Warlock (David R Slayton); One Last Stop & Red, White, and Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston); Hell Followed With Us (AJ White); everything by Michael G Williams

TV Shows: In the Flesh (BBC); Our Flag Means Death (HBO)

Then Movies: Rocketman (obv), Hearts Beat Loud

15. How has my identity changed over time?

I love looking back on smol me and being like "oh that's a nonbinary kiddo right there" but genuinely would NOT have conceived that for myself back then. Hindsight y'know? Where I grew up, I barely knew homosexual relationships were A Thing; trans people were A Joke (and not a nice one); anything else was like.... not even on the radar. Everyone in my close circle knew I was bi before I admitted it to myself--and I spent about three years going "am I bi?" (to a resounding chorus of YES) before going "oh okay yeah I can't actually keep pretending, I'm definitely bi"

then at 18 was "am I ace because Trauma or am I just ace?" to which my ultimate answer was "who cares why, I'm definitely 1) gray ace, and 2) demisexual as fuck"

the next big one was the polyam one, actually, because it somehow shook everyone more than me being bisexual / pansexual and coudln't be ignored the way me being ace was. (I did settle on pan becuase it's more accurate for the way I experience attraction, but I use them somewhat interchangably)

then you get "I can't be nonbinary bc my best friend is nonbinary and everyone will think I'm copying them" to "okay but I am definitely Not a Girl but I'm Not a Boy except sometimes I am a girl or a boy help" to "maybe I can just keep this buried deep inside myself and never have to acknowledge it" to "i stayed up all night reading destiel trans-designation omegaverse fic and i can't hide who I am anymore"

and now I'm just out here vibing my best queer life as some kind of fluid-af queer mess who wants to shove my neopronouns agenda down everyone's throats and wears a rainbow daddy crop jersey to pride!!

[sysmemes]

[ID: Surprised Pikachu meme. An image of cartoon Pikachu staring to the left of the camera with his mouth slightly open in a surprised expression. The caption above the image says "Pro/endos when they enter DID/OSDD1 communities and see people talking about trauma". End ID]

[ID 2: A screenshot of a tweet that says "I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me?" The username and profile photo are obscured by the caption text, which says "Pro/endos when they enter DID/OSDD1 communities and see people talking about trauma". End ID 2]

yo what's up sorry I disappeared for a hot sec anyways have this meme

also have a bonus third meme

[ID 3: Two panel Winnie the Pooh getting progressively fancier meme. In the first panel Pooh sits in an armchair facing the right of the camera. He has a neutral expression and is wearing his signature red t-shirt. The caption next to this panel says "posting syscourse memes". The second panel is below the first. In it, Pooh is in the same position as before but now smirking and wearing a tuxedo. The caption next to this panel says "posting syscourse memes but adding in a bonus third meme to tell you I love you". End ID 3]

[trhee-goblins-in-a-trenchcoat]

I've never seen Supernatural, and got tired of never understanding the memes, so me and two of my friends (who more or less have seen it all) decided to watch it.

We're at episode 12 season 1, so far so good by me. We're working on t-shirt designs. Here's what we got so far:

"Mother says it's my turn to trauma dump"

"Mother says it's my turn to play god"

"Mother says it's my turn to pray for you"

It's 23:53 at night. Sleep is for the weak! I'll keep you updated.

1/3

[the-aleksy-show]

I saw this meme format and I was like, what if I do that as a fun introcution to all my characters!

Or at least my fave characters.

The guy with the mic is Sergei Belinsky. He has BPD and is in a queerplatonic relationship with his friend Mikhail, and his dad is also one of the worst people in the world. He used to have sexual feeling for Caleb. (Not a crush, he's aro).

The guy on the floor is Sasha, Morningstar, he's an artist with serious daddy issues, his real name is Alexander Dellville and he's married.

The guy in jail is Caleb O'Lynn, as mentoned previously. He's a communist with even more trauma than all of these people put together, and he's the one Sasha's married to.

The woman praying is Adora Stalevna. She's married to the guy throwing money (His name is Nikolas), her maiden name is Dellville, and she's Sasha's sister. She homophobic and a bisexual in denial.

The guy having a mental breakdown in the background is called Vlad Lee. He's a mix of Crimean Tatar and Chinese (I may have gotten his skin tone wrong), he has social anxiety and he loves to bake.

And I've saved the best for last!

The guy in the bisexual t-shirt is Joshua Nevsky, real name Yeshua Bronstein. He's Jewish, very nervous, and he's dating Nikolas.

(Yes, I know Nikolas is married to Adora, but that was long before he even realized he liked Joshua).

He's a widower and spends most of his time on old fanfiction forums because he loves to look back at the horrendous things he used to write as a kid.

And then there's Nikolas Stal. He's half Indian, half Geogrian, and his name used to be Vazha Borisovich Khurana, but, as you can see, he changed it. He's polysexual, lowkey an anarchist and is trying his best to divorce Adora on the grounds of him being in love with Joshua, but she is adamant that there is no way that he can like Joshua 'because there is no way a person can like more than one gender'.

Her words, not mine.

I told you she was in serious denial.

I've had a lot of fun making this and I hope you like the terrible quality of my art.

I'll put a more detailed character thing here later on.

[anitosoul]

My Favorite Albums of 2020, 20-11

20. Porridge Radio, Every Bad

Favorite Tracks: Sweet | Born Confused | Lilac

I wish I found this album earlier, because after only a few listens it quickly jumped to one of my favorite albums of the year. This album is post-everything, incorporating aspects of punk, garage rock, metal, and indie into a bundle of frustratingly modern angst similar to Mannequin Pussy’s 2019 album Patience. Lead singer Dana Margolin deftly moves from quiet, dark singing into full on screaming, representing the difficulties of masquerading as fully-hinged when it’s obvious that everyone is, at least to some extent, totally unhinged. Every Bad is an album of shielding mantras and piercing emotions; it’s for anyone who’s sought clarity by reciting self-help book affirmations but ripped the pages to shreds right after. Every Bad exists in the deeply relatable space of desperately trying to listen to your mind and simultaneously resisting the clamoring pangs of the heart. The beauty of this album is that it doesn’t present itself in a sense of futility, but rather that of intent: anger and calm are important steps in processing trauma, and any recognition of that represents progress.

19. Lil Uzi Vert, Eternal Atake / Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World 2

Favorite Tracks: Lo Mein | Moon Relate | Yessirskii

The machine of hip-hop hype has become bigger than itself, a serpent eating its own tail. Major releases for artists like Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Kanye West, and most notoriously Frank Ocean blast through a roller coaster of twists and turns involving missed release dates, cryptic social media actions, leaked songs purchased through online “group buys,” and ravenous fans who spend most of their life on the Internet, setting both the anticipation for the album and the expectations for new content at unimaginable and arguably unattainable highs. The artist is left with a single critical shot to slay the hype monster, with first impressions largely dominating the public discourse: Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD soared him to rap titan status, allowing him to sell stupid amounts of overpriced merchandise (like $60 T-shirts commemorating buying a meal at McDonald’s between September and October of 2020), Frank Ocean’s critical darling Blonde (and please don’t forget Endless) topped Album of the Decade lists solidifying him as a musical legend, Kanye West’s JESUS IS KING confirmed his decline as an artist, blemishing his legacy and leaving fans clamoring for the album-that-never-was Yandhi, and most recently Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red found Internet kids immediately hating on the album on social media as a commemorative “I Was There” stamp due to its left-field sound.

In the case of Uzi, Eternal Atake and the subsequent deluxe/sequel album Lil Uzi Vert Vs. The World 2 land somewhere between ASTROWORLD and Whole Lotta Red. Uzi delivered two extremely high quality projects, the second of which was made up of curated snippets and guest features that fans had been demanding. While no individual song across these twin albums reaches nearly the height that “XO Tour Llif3” did in 2017 (whether due to COVID preventing any of the songs from making club rounds or simply that none of them caught on), I can’t help but feel like most of the fun of these hip-hop releases now lies in the anticipation, memes, frustration, and community leading up to the drop. Artists now have a very peculiar relationship to their fans where the balance of power and influence over their work can literally rest in the keyboards of a handful of vocal teenagers. In that sense, Uzi’s ride wasn’t a roller coaster, but a tilt-a-whirl: an exhilarating journey, but one without too many surprises in the end.

18. Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Favorite Tracks: I Want You to Love Me | Newspaper | Cosmonauts

I don’t think I’m a good enough writer to do this album justice with words. The only reason it’s not higher up for me is because this is a list of my personal favorites. Just know the praise is completely deserved—it’s the best album of 2020.

17. Sufjan Stevens, The Ascension

Favorite Tracks: Die Happy | Make Me an Offer I Cannot Refuse | Tell Me You Love Me

This album is…a lot. I had to listen to it over two sessions, already floored on my first listen by the time I got to my favorite song on the album “Die Happy” (it’s only six songs in). I was in a, um, fully altered headspace when I heard that song for the first time, melted into the couch as the music combined with my very being: when the song’s only lyric is “I want to die happy,” it can be overwhelming. I saved the rest for my trip to the Catskills, having no idea Stevens recorded the album there until I started writing this (coincidentally, I also found out Shore by Fleet Foxes was recorded in the Catskills when I first listened to it on this same Catskills trip). After a long day of hiking and the others had gone to bed, I filled the bathtub in the cabin with hot water, threw some leftover glowsticks in there, and opened the window to the cool mountain air as I came down and listened to the rest of the album. The middle was admittedly slow, but the album’s themes of reevaluating the American dream and existing in modern American society struck a chord. By utilizing the platitudes found throughout the album as anchor points, I was able to absorb every sound on The Ascension’s richly detailed electronic instrumentation. This was most prevalent in the closer track, the 12-minute “America.” I sat in the soft glow of the bath, thinking about my existence as a first-generation Filipino-American privileged enough to live in NYC and vacation in the Catskills with two fellow immigrant friends. The final platitude of the song lingered in my mind as I realized I was living out one version of the American dream:

Despite apparent prosperity, Stevens implores prudence: he does so by wrapping the chaos of existing in America in 2020—-including the exhaustion of constantly performing for an ever-expanding digital audience under the strict guidelines of a destructive society that often feels like it’s left its people behind—in a final call to God to make the world a better place. The Ascension is an album for a year that’s felt like the end of the world, a desperate grasp for a glimmer of hope within a terrible darkness.

16. Yaeji, WHAT WE DREW

Favorite Tracks: WAKING UP DOWN | WHAT WE DREW | SPELL

Oh, how I dream of seeing Yaeji DJ a dark, sweaty club in a Bushwick warehouse (I know this is getting old, but I swear I wrote this one before the previous entries!). WHAT WE DREW is Yaeji’s first studio album after her breakout EP EP2, which featured infectious pop house tune “Raingurl” and a techno-fied cover of Drake’s “Passionfruit.” On WHAT WE DREW, Yaeji has her heart on her sleeve and is vibing on her own wavelength. From the momentum she’s gained from her EPs and collaborations with big names like Charli XCX and Dua Lipa, she could have easily focused her efforts on making viral club bangers. Instead, she uses WHAT WE DREW as a canvas for self-expression and celebration of identity, which sets the basis for why I love this album. She fully embraces her background as a Korean-American, placing Korean track titles next to the English and singing and rapping in Korean throughout. The guest appearances are equally genuine, with Yaeji eschewing big name artists for friends from around the world, adding tilts of trap and J-pop to her already genre-defying sound. The airy but comforting abstract light greens and blues of the cover art match the mood of this album perfectly, as Yaeji includes lyrical hints of anxiety and struggle as a young Asian-American throughout her distinct production style. It’s a bold choice for a genre that doesn’t typically focus on lyricism: she’s putting out dance music that’s not just playful, but genuinely personal as well.

15. 100 gecs, 1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues

Favorite Tracks: ringtone (Remix) | hand crushed by a mallet (Remix) | toothless

All right, I’ll admit it—I’m a 100 gecs stan. When I first heard their music, I, like many others, was turned off by their abrasive, stupid sound. But over time, something clicked and I found myself loving it. It was hard to listen to anything else; I was addicted to the rapid-fire post-post-post-ironic tracks and felt like they sonically and lyrically captured Gen Z malaise in a way I had never heard before. When I found out about the remix album I was ecstatic; my hype was building after listening to the “Hand Crushed by a Mallet” Fall Out Boy remix on a low quality YouTube video of a 100 gecs DJ set. When the “Ringtone (Remix)” dropped as the first 2020 single for the album, I was floored at how well the guest features of Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito worked together—it’s since become tied for my favorite song of the year. The rest of the remix album is more of a mixed bag, but at the very least offers interesting takes on an already ambitious and uniquely creative base that was the original 1000 gecs album. Their music is like getting the Star on Mario Kart—short-lived, but intensely chaotic and fun. If new song “toothless” is anything to go by, 100 gecs are just getting started and I can’t wait to hear how they continue to define and refine the hyperpop genre.

14. HAIM, Women in Music Pt. III

Favorite Tracks: Los Angeles | The Steps | I’ve Been Down

This is HAIM at their realest: the sisters know exactly who they are and they’re unafraid to show it throughout this album. While still firmly rooted in breezy West Coast 70’s rock, they’ve expanded further, reining in new sounds and styles into their music. The subject matter is personal but tongue-in-cheek, satirical and sincere at the same time. Listening to album opener “Los Angeles” always put a smile on my face, listening to their musings on what a hometown can represent in one’s life: just like family, a hometown has seen your ups and downs, and love it or hate it, it will always be a part of you. This album is self-aware in the same way you might burst into absurd laughter instead of woeful tears when everything in your life is falling apart: the Haim sisters have been there, and they want you to know you’re not alone.

13. Lianne La Havas, Lianne La Havas

Favorite Tracks: Can’t Fight | Bittersweet | Paper Thin

This is straight up just a beautiful album. It’s effortless and sparse, and La Havas simply lets her talents carry the album. It’s folk and jazz and R&B but still uniquely her own sound; it’s wide and bold but still intimately personal, making it fittingly self-titled. I honestly can’t say too much about it in terms of relating the themes to my current experience or listening to it because I really connected to it at this point in my life, but it was in constant rotation throughout the year because listening to it was like laying in a field and watching the clouds: simple appreciation of natural beauty.

12. Playboi Carti, Whole Lotta Red

Favorite Tracks: M3tamorphosis | Sky | Rockstar Made

This was by far my most anticipated album of the year. I’ve always been a huge Carti stan, downloading all of his leaks dating back to 2011. I love Carti because of his constant ability to defy convention and predict (define?) trends. When the SoundCloud era was coming up in 2016, Carti completely deconstructed any notion of traditional rap, reducing verses entirely to repeated ad-libs over wavy Pi’erre Bourne beats. As mentioned previously, Carti garnered immense amounts of hype with the unexpectedly huge hit in the “Kid Cudi” (officially titled “Pissy Pamper,” but I refuse to call it that) leak, utilizing an extremely weird “baby voice” that was teased in Die Lit songs like “FlatBed Freestyle” and totally went against traditional masculine notions you’d expect to hear in hip-hop. I was fully along for the ride, listening to all the leaks and gearing myself up for what was shaping up to be an evolved Die Lit. When Carti finally dropped Whole Lotta Red on Christmas (the audacity!) after months of teasing, he once again defied expectation and skipped over the baby voice era entirely, dropping an album of raspy punk-trap songs that sounded more like Hi-C or Drain Gang rather than the currently popular hip-hop sound that he helped put in place. While this departure of style immediately garnered internet hate from people who felt the need to involve themselves in the zeitgeist with reactionary social media posts, I realized that Carti once again delivered a sound I didn’t know I wanted. I had been listening to a lot of ‘90’s/early 2000’s rock and electronic music in the month leading up to its release, curating an aesthetic genre that my roommate and I coined “tech grunge.”

As I listened to Whole Lotta Red’s anxiety-ridden and surprisingly candid lyrics about addiction, death, and vampiric personification over distorted bass and Sega Genesis-type beats, I concluded that Carti put out perhaps the first fully realized tech grunge album ever:

They can’t understand me, I’m talkin’ hieroglyphics (yeah) They can’t understand me, I’m talkin’ hieroglyphics I feel like Morpheus (what? What?), I feel like Morpheus (what? What?) I got my whole gang on some other shit I done changed my swag (swag, swag, what? What?)

I mean, come on.

If I have any critique of the album it would be that it could have been stronger as a double album, splitting the harder hitting tracks onto one album and the Die Lit 2 sounding tracks onto another (which I actually did in the Spotify playlists below), but nonetheless this album completely delivered for me with its infectious beats and sick aesthetic.

11. The Microphones, Microphones in 2020

Favorite Tracks: Just listen to the whole thing

The Glow, Pt. 2 was one of the first albums I downloaded when I had an iPod in early high school and one of the albums that got me into indie music. Listening to this album alone under the stars was sublime and would probably have broken my top 10 if I heard it any earlier in the year. It’s difficult to put out a good concept album, especially when it all sounds like one long song, but Phil Elverum’s released a project that never bores and never drags: Microphones in 2020 is a slow burning, ambient experiment in storytelling, building up sonically as he recounts his own history from the early days of The Microphones through the period of his band Mount Eerie, which was defined by personal tragedy due to the death of his wife, into where he is right now in 2020, four years later. The 45-minute song brought me back to the many nights this past year that I spent ruminating in bed, looking back at old journal entries and photos, thinking about all that’s led me to this point. The reflections would never fully revive the all-encompassing joy, sadness, pleasure, or pain that was felt in those past moments, but instead faded the memories with a sepia of sentimental nostalgia: a reminder of the transience of emotion and the elusiveness of meaning.

[congregenturanimarum]

@etheirian​ asked:  🛀 the lizerd boys,, MEME:  send 🛀 for your muse to help my traumatised muse wash off the blood.

It had been vicious, even by Xaela standards.

Fights, battles, death - all fragments of life in which all of whom lived within the Steppe had experienced from a rather young age. Witnessing the loss of a life, while distressing, eventually came part of the norm, a simple progression of power and conflict upon the stretching greenery of lush grass; one grew up to expect it, to always know of it and while that knowledge didn’t always soothe the hurt or the anger that blossomed from grief, it remained true. 

But even that knowledge and experience could not have prepared Ieaki for the brutality his pale eyes had witnessed that eve.

Walking aside a trader from the Mol, he had been returning from a visit to his family just beyond the beginning of the Nhaama Desert and had met the other along the way - deciding to be of company to make the long walk seem less lonesome. The attack itself came close to the foundations of the Dawn Throne - two tribes in which Ieaki was unable to identify had warriors suddenly sprout upon one another, and himself and his company had avoided it as much as they were able but still did they find themselves caught up where they did not wish to be. 

The sheer viciousness of the battle - between perhaps a dozen or so beings - was unlike anything seen before. Disembowelling, innards scattering across the lushness of grass, blood akin to rain falling from every direction. All happened so very fast, and while Ieaki’s companion had turned and ran once blood had been shed, the pale male could only remain where he was, sat leaning against a large rock - petrified where he was. 

‘T was all over just as swiftly as it had began, those that had survived leaving into the darkness of the night; leaving Ieaki in the company of the dead. His ankles dig into the ground, pushing his back further against the mass of rock behind him as if it would ground him, or force himself away from the hideous sea of blood and gore before him - trembling, eyes wide and traumatised, he couldn’t look away, couldn’t move. 

When a hand nigh wrenched him to his feet, Ieaki could only go with it - housing no strength nor will to so much as raise his gaze away from the floor to see whom was leading him towards water. Unto his knees did he drop, another’s hand reaching for his own to begin wiping away at the staining of blood upon hands - viscera coating the pale male from head to toe. Moonlit scales were stained red, colourless hair saturated with darkened crimson; even  his clothing, the sheer white material of his shirt, was more reddened than it was pristine. 

Eyes stare down, watching as the red upon hands becomes diluted with the efforts of whomever it was to his side; eventually clean. 

Flashes of what he had witnessed continually burned into iris’, light trembling from the cold of the water and the trauma and shock throughout his person just as plaguing and overwhelming’ t’was no wonder the male didn’t raise his gaze to view whomever was to his side, that he didn’t speak for some time. 

No, not even as his hands rose upward to remove the nigh ruined fabric of his shirt, to place it aside so that the stickiness of blood would not continue to cling to skin; the further sights of usually obscured scales now shimmering beneath the moonlight and would have been brighter were they not dotted with red.  

He felt nauseous, he felt dizzy, his head pounded and his ears rang - having to dip his head even further for a moment simply to focus upon breathing and not rolling unto his side; but he did find himself leaning closer to whomever knelt aside him. If not for them, Ieaki would have still been petrified to the rock. 

Eventually, as he watches - in utterly petrified silence - the water run down arms from where it has been used to scrub at whatever vulgarities were stick to his skin, did he raise his gaze; able to catch the sights of vivid eyes staring right back at him and without needing to see aught more did he know precisely who was there;

“I’m glad its you-” Whispered, broken, fluctuating was his tone; as trembling as he. No other words came forth, only the raising of fingers to pull at the stickiness tinting his hair. Every other moment did the poor male relive what he had witnessed, knowing that his very consciousness would not be the same again- and although he wanted to cry, he found himself unable. 

In shock, he could only watch as more blood was washed from his arms. 

“...please don’t leave--”