the twitter thread the artist created after this was one of the best situations i have ever seen in my whole life:
Somebody give this ignoramus a piece of actual shark skin and tell him to rub his face with it, let him find out just how “smooth” sharks really are.
Somebody did. I use it as a pillowcase because it’s so smooth.
But buddy.
Shark skin feels exactly like sandpaper. It is made up of tiny teeth-like structures called placoid scales, also known as dermal denticles. These scales point towards the tail and help to reduce friction from surrounding water when the shark swims. … In the opposite direction, it feels very rough like sandpaper.
As someone who absolutely *loves* stories that are their own ARGs (House of Leaves, Doki Doki, Graham Base’s Eleventh Hour as a kid), it’s actually *important* that authors not feel pressured to write stories like that.
It’s also important that all those stories I named, as well as intricate open worlds like Dark Souls and Skyrim, *can* just be explored as a basic linear storyline—not everyone thinks in layers, and a *bad* story gets Lost in them (pun intended). The extra stuff is nice for those obsessed with detail, but that extra stuff should always be an optional treat at most. Best part is, if the lore isn’t there (or not to your satisfaction), you can just make it up on your own—plenty of people have, some have found great success doing so.
When I was at the lowest spot in my depression I locked myself in my bedroom for three days and lied to everyone I knew. I called in sick to work. I told my mom I was seeing a doctor. I told my friends I was busy. I had successfully fooled everyone who loved me that I was making healthy changes and getting better. I wasn’t, but it was so much easier to hide and pretend that I was than to actually go outside and do something.
Depression is weird. I feel like a lot of people think depression means being sad and crying all the time but it’s the exact opposite. Depression, for me at least, was the complete and utter lack of emotion. I was so apathetic to everything that I couldn’t care if I wanted to. Sometimes I would work myself up to tears by thinking about how fucking miserable and pathetic I was, but almost as quickly as they came I was back to “what’s the point?”
Same with happiness. I could watch the cutest cat video on the whole internet and I would smile and laugh and the alarm in my brain would start screaming KITTEN ALERT EVERYBODY FREAK OUT
but as soon as it was over the power would go out and the little workers inside my head would take a vacation to the brain of someone who could sustain an emotion for longer than the average youtube video.
So there I am, laying in bed, my entire body recoiling in horror at the pitiful excuse of the mind that it’s been permanently tethered to. I start to wonder if things will ever change or if I’ll just be like this forever. I become vaguely suicidal. I don’t really want to end my life, but I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of me suddenly ceasing to exist. So I hide in bed all day, every day, for as long as I can manage.
I wait for something. Anything. A satellite to fall through my roof and crush me in my sleep. An earthquake to part my street from the avenue that crosses it and swallow my house to the middle of Earth’s giant rumbly belly. A friend to kick down my door and drag me to the hospital or mental institution or maybe a secret underground lab where the government keeps people who don’t have feelings anymore.
Fortunately, none of that happens.
My friends eventually catch on to my shenanigans and despite their best efforts, are useless. They would try to get me out of the house almost daily but I would make up some bullshit excuse to get out of it.
Eventually, they stop trying to help me, and even though they weren’t successful before, their lack of empathy becomes my new favorite excuse.
It wasn’t their fault, of course. It was mine. They had done everything they could and I was not ready or able or willing to cooperate. Did I understand that at the time? No fucking way. Why I would take responsibility for my problems when I could just blame them on someone else?
In the early stages of my depression I would sometimes compare my affliction to The World’s Worst Roller Coaster!™
I knew that eventually I would get to the top, the ride being so emotionally exhausting that I would simply be ‘okay’ enough to not throw myself over the railing and ruin some random passerby’s day. I would instead begin the long and weary trek down the 312 steps towards sanity.
But I never reached the top.
In fact, my ascent to the peak of the coaster was so slow that renovations had already begun and construction on the rest of the track had started while I was still onboard. Nobody cared to notify me or maybe slam the big red button that says “HEY THERE’S SOME ASSHOLE STILL ON THE RIDE!”
As my depression continued, The World’s Worst Roller Coaster!™ slowly began to morph into an episode of The World’s Deadliest Train Crashes!®.
My train car began to pick up speed along the newly appointed rails. I passed through tunnels and forests and cold mountain ranges but no cities or towns or warm inviting parties filled with people I wanted to see or be around. My train was on a journey to God knows where, but it was going too fast for me to hop off or for anyone to hop on and help me.
I tried to make the best of my train ride by keeping myself busy (in my own solitary one-person train car, of course) but it only made me more lonely and depressed. No matter how many video games, books, movies, or internet memes I devoured I still couldn’t feel like I was doing anything right.
Eventually I realized my train wasn’t taking me anywhere good.
I knew I still had plenty of time before I needed to start worrying, but it was hard for me to accept the fact that the light at the end of my tunnel was actually a fallen-apart rickety wooden bridge over a 200 foot drop into freezing polar bear infested waters. I figured I would just hold on as tight as I could and pray I would survive the fiery plunge off the bridge and that maybe, just maybe, someone would pull my shivering body out of the ice-water.
You see, I had no desire to change anything. I was ready to ride my stupid train right to my death. I just didn’t care enough to save myself.
While riding my train, I spoke to a friend. She told me that I was running out of track and that she was afraid. She began to cry and told me that she wanted nothing more than for me to get off the train. She wanted me to fix my stupid brain and convince the little workers to ditch their vacation plans and come back home. She wanted me to watch cat videos that would make me laugh so hard my eyes would roll back into my head and my spine would constrict into the letter R. She wanted me to get back to blogging the way I had in the past and use it to build a name, and possibly a career, for myself. She wanted me to find love in someone who loved me back, rather than the useless people I had spent the last year chasing to no avail. She wanted the best for me. She wanted me to be good. She offered to do anything she could to make me that way.
This person had so much love for me that she was willing to do anything to help me.
I snapped.
I realized I wasn’t ready to let go.
I began to cry. I began to cry in a way that I hadn’t cried in months. I felt genuine emotion and I wanted to keep feeling it. I used to hate crying, but after weeks and months of indifference and pure concentrated lethargy, the tears felt like the best thing ever. Each salty glob was a sigh of relief. All the emotions I had repressed were leaking down my face and I didn’t know if I should smile or laugh or sob loudly. So I did all three.
I stood up in my train car and leaned over the side. I could see the bridge out at the end and I knew it was now or never. I closed my eyes and jumped feet first.
I did it! I got off the train! I didn’t explode into tiny little pieces and get devoured by polar bears! I ran back to my friend and I thanked her for saving me.
“I didn’t do anything, Rhyse. You made the decision. You got off the train.”
I was aware that I wasn’t right the whole time, but I was perfectly content to just ride it out, even though I knew it wasn’t going to end well. I had spent so long not feeling anything that I believed the first active choice I had made was all due to someone else. But it was me all along. I had made the first step to getting better.
Now I have a long walk back to civilization. My path won’t be easy. It will be a slow and arduous journey peppered with therapists, medication, and return-to-work forms, but I am ready to try, and that’s already an enormous development from the way I’ve been.
I know it’s probably weird to be reading this on my blog, especially considering this is about as much an actual ‘blog’ as cheese slices are actual cheese, but I felt it was extremely important to share my story with people who might be going through the same thing.
I am not cured of my depression and I won’t pretend that I’m perfectly okay now, but I am ready to start getting better. Knowing you’re not alone is huge. Depression weakens people by isolating them from the ones they love. Know this, if you are feeling like I felt, you are not alone. Reach out to the people who surround you, you never know who will be there to catch you.
I’ve never had something convey what depression is like more clearly than this
Here’s a thread with information about Aokigahara (The Suicide Forest in Japan) by the lovely user flavordays on Twitter. If you needed proof of how much of a scumbag Logan Paul is, here it is.
A bit like in Hurts’ case, I didn’t think something more perfect than Smoke + Mirrors could be created. And I was right, Evolve can’t even live up to Night Visions let alone Smoke + Mirrors. But is it good? Sure. Is it awesome? Ehh, not awesome, no, but it’s good. It sort of reminds me of what a first album would be for a band that doesn’t quite know what to do with themselves yet. It’s a bit all over the place, not quite a unit even though the songs individually are all enjoyable. There’s a disconnect there between the title and the material as it doesn’t quite feel like evolution just yet. Sure they’re stretching out their wings, trying to see what they can do to not be forever put into the radio hit factory box. The best example of that is Thunder but there are other efforts here that are worth a listen. At the end of the day I love the kindness of this record, the lightness in some songs and the brutal force in some others. I’m interested to see where the road takes this band from here.
My favourite songs from the record: Rise Up, Yesterday, Mouth of the River, I’ll Make It Up to You
09 Amber Run: For a Moment I Was Lost
I was surprised to see just how many of the bands I’ve been following were on the verge of breaking up or having to reinvent themselves in order to survive. It’s not that big of a deal, I realise, it happens to most artists I imagine and even though I’m glad we’re all okay I’m the happiest for Amber Run’s pulling through a hard time. They fall into this category of the best of all the worlds ever so nothing is really off the table with them from epic ballads to club bangers (okay maybe not club bangers but I wouldn’t be surprised) and because of Joe Keogh’s unique vocals and enormous range they really have nothing in their way to create whatever they like.
They usually like to create this dream-like almost vision of angelic plucks at the guitar and the piano, but then it turns into yelling and hammering away on the drums, every guitar the members could find simultaneously playing every note on the known scale and it’s beautiful, hectic waterfall of emotions. They have a fair share of lukewarm nowwhat’s but luckily they have enough of when they’re at their best too (I’m talking about the waterfall of emotions).
FAMIWL is a tad more dynamic than 5AM was but also more confident in the same time. This band is criminally underrated but I hope they keep making music because they’re such a unique spot in the current indie rock scene, it’d be a shame to rob the world of their sound.
My favourite songs from the album: Perfect, No Answers, Stranger, Insomniac
08 Ed Sheeran: Divide
I like fun. I also like Ed Sheeran. So when literally ALL SIXTEEN SONGS from his new album’s DELUXE EDITION was on Spotify’s Global Top 50 for so long Spotify had to implement changes to how they pick the top 50 so one artist can’t take up almost half of the list I thought it was fucking hilarious and I’m so glad it’s Ed Sheeran who achieved this.
Because he’s always been a “bit of this bit of that” kind of musician it’s hard to tell if he ventured outside his comfort zone on this record but I know that the first song on the record, Eraser, is part of why I like this guy so much. Every side of him, the ballad guy, the rapper guy, the nostalgic pub song guy, it’s all him, and all throughout the success he’s remained grounded. When I heard him name Damien Rice in Eraser, someone he’s idolised ever since he was little and literally followed around to pursue with demos of his songs, I knew he remained that honest guy he was back when he was just… a guy. I can respect that. I hope he keeps that up. And this album’s got hooks for days, all better than the one before.
My favourite songs from the album: Eraser, New Man, Nancy Mulligan
07 Window to the Abbey: Moving Around Bias
I wrote about this record in length here and I’m surprising myself with the placement of this album but it’s true that if one of my few problems with this album is that the songs are in the wrong order then it’s still a pretty damn good album. And it is 🙂
My favourite songs from the album: Break Up Song, Part Time, The Promise, Common Ground
06 Cold War Kids: LA Divine
(it was really hard to crop this without it including the expression “Cold Kids”)
My love for Cold War Kids is endless and yet their albums are such hard hit and misses it’s incredible. I either love them to bits or I love like the lead single and nothing else. Dear Miss Lonelyhearts has my all time favourite CWK song on it but I couldn’t hum you another song from that album. However the singles released from LA Divine were very promising so I found myself hoping for a good one. And it was. I agree with critics that say maybe CWK wanted to chew off too big a bite with the needless intermezzos that don’t add anything to the overall experience but other than that you’ve just got these guys flexing their hit writing muscles. These songs are banger after banger, call it tryhard if you want but I’ll call the firemen cause… cause it’s lit……
I’m sorry.
My favourite songs from the album: Can We Hang On?, No Reason to Run, Ordinary Idols
05 Linkin Park: One More Light
I’ve loved Linkin Park for a decade which is a long time and 2007 wasn’t even remotely the beginning of their career. It was with Minutes to Midnight that the “they sold out” train started and more and more people jumped on all of the wagons every year especially with new releases and yet Linkin Park stayed not giving a crap, a bit like Fall Out Boy. My personal favourite of theirs Living Things was followed by The Hunting Party which I didn’t quite get but I never stopped enjoying their music. So when Heavy came out I knew the bullshit about them going pop would start and I wasn’t wrong. It’s true, One More Light is way milder, more quiet record than any of the records before but I feel like if you’ve been in a band for almost two decades you can kind of do whatever the fuck you want without having to explain yourself. I’m glad Linkin Park did exactly that.
Lighter in its sound but just as emotional as ever, One More Light is different, but it’s a welcome difference. I didn’t want another Meteora or another Living Things, I wanted a new Linkin Park record with good songs on it and the band delivered. I love the sampling, I love the polished melodies, I love the rap parts just the same, I love it when Mikey sings 🙂 if I could change one thing I’d just make the whole album longer.
My favourite songs from the album: Talking to Myself, Sharp Edges, Good Goodbye
I fucking miss Chester so much. Rest in peace, thank you for everything.
04 Misterwives: Connect the Dots
I’ve also written about this miracle of an album here so I won’t repeat myself (I think I’ve done it enough already). It’s bands and albums like this that remind me to try new things even if they don’t look like my thing. I don’t listen to stuff like Misterwives and yet this album brought so much joy into my life, I couldn’t be more grateful (to Spotify).
My favourite songs from the album: Only Human, Band Camp, Out of Tune Piano, Let the Light In
03 Everything Everything: A Fever Dream
I also wrote about why and how Everything Everything got onto the best artists list so late and the case isn’t different with the album either. Get to Heaven didn’t blow my mind and even though a friend of mine couldn’t have recommended A Fever Dream to me more I just missed out on it for a few months. But maybe it was fate, maybe it wasn’t my time to love it before. Now it definitely is. A Fever Dream continues the band’s tradition of singing fast-paced, weird songs overloaded by dissonant guitars and synths, accompanied by the singer’s wailing. I’m sorry I keep shitting on his voice, it’s a very unique voice, it’s kind of rickety and squeaky but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
However, there’s a strange, faimilar coldness about this album. I can’t explain how it manifests I just feel it. A sort of addictive loneliness I couldn’t get out of even if I wanted to. Either way, all of these together create what is definitely a perfect album. (Pretty much if I wanted to I could put this in the place of Enter Shikari’s The Spark and it would still stand, they’re both just so good.)
My favourite songs from the album: all of them, really… but if I have to play along, it’s A Fever Dream, White Wale, Good Shot Good Soldier, Night of the Long Knives
“It sounds like a concept album but to me it’s rather a collection of specific ideas and topics with clear messages, expressing thought-provoking opinions without ever demeaning the listener or even sounding pompous or like Enter Shikari knows better because they’re not playing regular music, you know.”
My favourite songs from the album: Live Outside, Undercover Agents, Airfield, Take My Country Back
01 Nothing But Thieves: Broken Machine
Not that it needs more explanation because I’ve pretty much been on about this album the whole fucking year but Nothing But Thieves came into my life two years ago at a friend’s recommendation and their first album quickly became one of my favourites that year (I snuck it onto the best albums list at fifth place in 2015) and when Amsterdam came out it was just The Explosion I waited for. It rekindled my love for them and made me look forward to something in a year that wasn’t great. Singles kept being released and slowly the wait for Broken Machine consumed my life.
In this day and age, probably because of how cynical I’ve become, it’s hard to look forward to something in a “man this is gonna be awesome!” way, it’s usually that tense sigh of “I hope they don’t fuck this up” but maybe all the stars aligned and I just knew Broken Machine would be awesome. And it was.
My favourite songs from the album: you know the drill, but if I had to choose a few to recommend, it’d be Sorry, Broken Machine, Live Like Animals, Particles, I’m Not Made By Design, I’ll stop listing every song on the album now.
Pass Through Fire 