Oh dear, you've found the secret slime cave lair of Enforcer @ Draggian Universe where they put their awful little thoughts. Get out while you can. Established June 2024 as somewhere to put my angsty thoughts about how Falling In Reverse sucks other than the void and annoying my friends.
Enter at your own risk; this is where I put spur of the moment random nonsense, angst, and opinions to get them out of my brain. When I say slime, I mean slime. And possibly full on possession.
The 50 most recent thoughts are being shown. A curated selection of old thoughts I thought were useful, funny, and/or interesting can be found here.
so apparently "come from away" isn't just the musical; it is actually a thing Maritimers organically say to describe folks who came from far out
the optimistic fantasy that people who deserve it will suffer (incorrect)
Driving day 4/4
Location: [REDACTED], New Brunswick
Drive time: ~4 hours
Soundtrack: not much
Activity: Pokemon SoulSilver, beat the elite 4 and first two gyms in Kanto
Morale: good, HP critical
Got to my final destination city. Will move into my house tomorrow. Got my study permit and looked around. Did some mild shopping / exploration in Fredricton.
Study permit procured, so I am officially safely out of the US for the next 2 years. Any mutuals who are curious about the process can DM me. You don't get to know where I'll be more specifically than New Brunswick because it's not in a large metro area like Memphis or Atlanta so a city name may be identifiable.
Site updates will resume after I am moved in this week. Complications arose IRL in the last couple weeks of July, hence my inactivity. I promise Go Fest 2025 is getting done this month and the New Year's resolution to finish the Dudesverse 2023 backlog still holds.
I would post "dawn of the final day", but this seemed more apropos. My back and legs are extremely unhappy. About 2 hours to the border and another 2 to my final destination. Then I get to move into my room tomorrow.
Driving day 3/4
Location: Bangor, Maine
Drive time: ~9 hours, including getting lost a couple times
Soundtrack: Finished SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK and got 6 songs in before I noticed it had looped. Assessed Poppy and wasn't impressed. Got about halfway through Spiritbox before my morale dropped enough that I wasn't really perceiving anything.
Activity: Pokemon SoulSilver -- beat the last 4 gyms, and spent a probably equal amount of time cheating at Voltorb Flip to teach my kids less sucky moves and level grinding because the second half of Johto is a combo of underleveled spawns and Not underleveled trainers. I whited out to the kimono ladies twice, although part of it is that because of Johto's mix of them, you need two critters for HMs.
Morale: Low
Good news is that tomorrow is pretty short. 2 hours to the border and another 2 to my final destination. Then one last night in a hotel room before I move into my room.
Apparently Massachusetts is in Unova. Who knew? I thought Bouffalant was just regional to New York for region inspiration reasons.
Also, I actually sort of like pineapple on pizza and I'm not even from Georgia, but this is horrifying. This is definitely not a thing in Georgia, or I think if it were, I'd have seen it while living in Atlanta for 4 years? ...is this what new England folks think southerners do?
...okay, I think we just also drove past the exact neon green Hyundai Kona we got as our first rental car but had to return because it was too small. Same make and model, same shade of green, and didn't get the plate number but they were both Pennsylvania. Weird. It's following us. (It probably wasn't the same one? Although I don't know how many neon green Hyundai Konae with Pennsylvania plates there are.)
Drove past a six flags. It isn't Six Flags Great Adventure (where the mic stand incident happened) in New Jersey, which we will be close to on the way between Harrisburg and Bangor, but I think it's too far west since we're east of Philadelphia and will be on the New Jersey side of NYC.
If we do go past Great Adventure, I think I need to get a pic of the sign just as part of my duties as the designated Ronnie Loremaster.
Think what we saw from the interstate was this one > Dorney Park / Wildwater Kingdom
sadly, the timing wasn't right for us to go to go fest in Jersey city on my way out, because we get pretty close to NYC
Drove past a six flags. It isn't Six Flags Great Adventure (where the mic stand incident happened) in New Jersey, which we will be close to on the way between Harrisburg and Bangor, but I think it's too far west since we're east of Philadelphia and will be on the New Jersey side of NYC.
If we do go past Great Adventure, I think I need to get a pic of the sign just as part of my duties as the designated Ronnie Loremaster.
Think what we saw from the interstate was this one > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorney_Park_%26_Wildwater_Kingdom
sadly, the timing wasn't right for us to go to go fest in Jersey city on my way out, because we get pretty close to NYC
Second leg of driving done. The focus of today was not covering distance, but so my mom could briefly meet with her hometown bestie and her dad / my grandfather in Harrisonburg, since we went right through it. I put up with the whole thing with vague discomfort, since that section of the folks definitely still thinks of me as the daughter with all that entails. Also, somehow, my mom's family are the only extraverts in my bloodline.
Drive time: ~5.5 hours
Current location: Harrisburg, PA
Soundtrack: SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK, with an interlude of nothing while I had a headache after leaving Harrisonburg.
Activity: Pokemon SoulSilver, data was bad due to being in the mountains for most of the drive. Course, I had to go through 3 different emulators before I found one that sorta worked, and it still isn't reliable. Free DS For Android enshittified sometime between 2023 and now.
Stops: Taco Bell, Harrisonburg (extended), Dairy Queen because my mom wanted ice cream, various bathrooms
Morale: OK. Mine is worse than my mom's.
Here's an assortment of mildly interesting pictures from today, and what my Pokemon party got to over the drive (keeping in mind that I had to start over when I changed emulators twice, and that I spent a good 30+ minutes cheating at Voltorb Flip with save states for that Dratini.)
look at these sick-ass dragons from the truck stop we got lunch at
they also had some really cool knives (which I didn't buy any of them because I'm not sure if I can take them over the border), and operator flex trousers which looked really useful but they didn't have in my size. Most truckers are bigger than me. Also, if you want an affordable source for edgy gear, truck stops frequently have it.
My life goal fantasy is to acquire a house, a stable job of some sort (probably in teaching), and enough disposable income that I can decorate it in the style of Metalhead Uncle. Halloween decorations year round, band posters, those sick gas station dragons, and maybe swords / knives if they're allowed in Canada. And a bunch of snakes, although probably North American species because I'd be concerned for the safety of tropical snakes in the event of a power outage. If it really gets down to the 40s Fahrenheit (around 5 to 7 C) at night in New Brunswick even in summer, I'm not sure that even with power, a ball python or something would ever eat.
First leg of driving is done. Landed in Wytheville, Virginia. We would have stopped sooner, but apparently the literal first ever major baseball game hosted in TN was in Bristol tonight and surge priced hotels for like 50 miles around.
Featuring this adorable sign which felt like the requests were "a font that's almost but not quite Comic Sans" and "can you do that dot thing from Friends?"
Drive length: ~8 hours
Stops: McKay's and Subway, and various bathrooms
Soundtrack: SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK, with a brief interlude for the entire Come From Away soundtrack version (which doesn't have some of the best lines in the show)
Activity: Petsite dailies when I had enough data to load images. Online fantasy-parody with good world building lit fic when I didn't. Finished the John Brown Isekai's presently out chapters, which I started last week, and started re-reading Everybody Loves Large Chests. Maybe I'll get through this time. I love its early chapters, but I petered out last time midway through the Catgirl War Intrigue section because it didn't feel as xenofiction-y once the protagonist was more sapient.
Morale: Generally good, although it might not be since I need to wake up before 9 if I want breakfast. I can't sleep in the back seat given the uncomfortable position, sunlight, vibration, and how my dad plays the radio constantly and runs the A/C at full blast.
I downloaded stuff to assess on the drive. In practice, I decided I would get more benefit this first leg from my emotional support playlist. Which is named kind of the opposite of what it's really meant to be / do, but I think "SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK" re: my special interest SAN points is funny so it stays
They always told me I was gorgeous in a way / and that fateful day / I found who I was
Well, at least Ronnie knows his most character defining and important trait is being pretty. Also note that this is the song which, coupled with I Can Explain, pretty clearly canonizes his being in love with Max (along with another use of "in love" for EtF in ICE and FIR demo The Departure) so who, exactly, was calling him gorgeous, in what context, and what exactly he got awakened in him will be left as exercises for the reader.
Apparently Subways can survive on their own. I've never seen one that's by itself before instead of in a strip mall or attached to a truck stop.
down with Ronnie semitruck (it is full of onions, which he is well known to hate)
The next 4 days of posts may be weird, if extant at all (as in weirder than usual) because I have This to look forward to on my agenda. As you know, I'm fleeing to Canada for a postbac and the foreseeable future, because I want to teach science while being trans, and none of those words are viable in the US. Unfortunately, I am coming from Southern Hell. And flying or shipping my stuff were prohibitively expensive and logistically hard.
So me, my parents, and a dorm room's worth of stuff are going to be stuck in a rental car for four ~6 to 8 hour sessions. It's practically guaranteed someone is going to blow up over that time, given the catastrophically low morale in the house. Honestly, all my dreads aside, I feel like once I'm actually in Redacted Maritime Town, things will be much chiller by comparison to the palpable malaise and 90s Fahrenheit / 32-35 Celsius heat. In both literal and figurative senses.
You don't get to know anything more specific than the largest city closest to my hometown, but here's the approximate bullshit route you can look forward to.
I've got several scene assessment entries (Poppy, Issues, and Spiritbox) and Pokemon Soul Silver in an emulator loaded up on my phone, and may end up getting more. And, like, a lot of sour gummies and roughly half a carton of Goldfish.
yeah, I'm pretty sure that Icon For Hire is somewhere in these kids' inspirational lineage. the vibes here are quite obvious. much like Icon For Hire, this would have probably rewired my brain had I encountered it during my Nightcore era. As it stands, it ends up coming off cute, but kind of corny to me in 2025 with a wider understanding of both feminism and genre canon.
I wasn't impressed with Underoath's early work, even once they stopped being as overtly Christian, but it turns out, what they needed to become damned impressive was to fully embrace rage and let themselves say "fuck".
tell me this looks as cool as I think it does. acquired a kit for putting spikes on things (spikes, screws, screwdriver, and awl) and decided that after I be-spiked a basic choker (I don't understand why, but you can get chokers with either down-pointing pentagrams or spikes but not both), that the hoodie I've had since some presumably middle school boy at the bus stop by my house left it in my yard for 3 weeks in 2019 would be a suitable use for some more. tried to go for a "crown of thorns" sort of thing whose relation to the present incarnation of the thing calling itself Ronnie is not lost on me. I can have a little of syncretism as a treat.
Toto, we're not in the edgy venue anymore.
(at Graceland for In This Moment, to which my mom got me tickets as a graduation present and we got a hotel room, at Graceland, because there was a good combo deal on it and I don't want to drive back from here at midnight. Nor do my parents want to drive up on I-40 at midnight to pick me up.)
Perhaps this makes for a suitable send-off to Memphis and all it entails? Since gods willing, I am never coming back here unless it's to pick up the rest of my plushies to be taken to a house I might eventually own. Honestly, Memphis is pretty fine. It's the suburbs I hate, and that Memphis has the misfortune to be in Tennessee and the absolute peak of Southern (derogatory) culture.
The soundstage has a very nice lobby with the bar, seating, and I think screens showing what's going on in the stage room (like some other venues I've been to) so I think this is where I'll be for the openers. Oh, and it has a family bathroom. First venue I've encountered with one.
I have some Elvis pictures (attached), and pictures of me with displays of Elvii, but I'm not taking pictures of strangers even though the image of a bunch of decidedly goth / emo / metal looking people taking up space at Graceland is pretty funny. Of course, there are also some people here who look much more like you'd expect Elvis fans to look. I wonder if there are worshippers who just go to every concert at Graceland?
They don't seem to provide water, so I am probably ending up buying an overpriced bottle / can. Seems rather impolite for a Subcultures That Wear Black concert in Memphis in July.
First opener: The Pretty Wild
Apparently the screens are just the same Elvis or ad loops all the time rather than showing what's in the stage room from the lobby, because that makes too much sense.
So I'm just going to pull up a chair in earshot of the stage rooms because I don't want to stand through all the openers because I WILL feel it and don't want to repeat Blessthefall in 2023 where by the time the band i was there for came on, I was wiped.
there's enough space in the stage room that perhaps I can get away with pulling up some floor. Of course, all plausible places one could pull up floor are flanked by security so...
First opener The Pretty Wild reminds me of Icon For Hire with metal screaming, or the midpoint between Icon For Hire and Slipknot. Had they been contemporal with its peak, I think the Nightcore crowd would love them. Their two vocalists have good harmony with each other, and the one who does most of the screaming (they trade off, but one seems more screaming vs. cleans and vice versa for the other.) seems pretty good at it.
I guess that my knees objecting to standing for extended periods is just standing still, so perhaps I could pace in the back? There seems to be enough space to allow for that, which is also nice for thermoregulation.
Both Pretty Wild vocalists are sisters. The third sister is at the merch booth. Security seem to be quite actively patrolling and nobody else is pulling up floor (and sound blocking between the lobby and stage room is pretty good) so I either need to stand, pace, or not be able to hear the openers well if I don't want to get in trouble.
Count of Falling In Reverse shirts is at least two. I'd think that if you're there for the very overtly feminist and queer inclusive In This Moment, bringing your Zombified / PM2024 shirt would be an inherent contradiction in terms. Also, a guy kept looking at me weird trying to figure out what my deal was and if I was okay, because in his own words "I looked like I was flipping out" so I moved intermission seats. Not sure if it's honest concern, ableism, being unable to determine my gender, or all of the above. Either way, I'm not comfortable with it. I am just here to vibe, sir.
Second opener: Kat Von D
Kat Von D (second opener, tattoo artist with delusions of musical grandeur) was described by Wikipedia as "alternative pop", as in electronic pop with loose goth influences and a dark aesthetic, and yep, that's what she is. They are? Never sure how to refer to bands that are named after / vehicles for their lead solely. She also has blackout sleeves that look way better than Ronnie's. Probably because she's more competent than his guy. Good projector graphics, eh music. Probably not gonna bother to assess. They are neither my kind of edge nor my kind of electronic.
To the guy in the "My Wife Beats Me" shirt, please refer to the TVtropes and/or Wikipedia pages (and their academic sources) on "Double Standard: Abuse (Female On Male)". That might be worse than PM2024. While it has never been observed in the wild, it's at least theoretically possible to be willing to spend money on Falling In Reverse without finding abuse funny. That is unambiguous.
Kat Von D - Truth In Reverse > ow, right in the slime. to be fair the lyrical themes also come off...odd, plus since she has similar motifs and the blackout sleeves...
I hope that if she's friends with Maria, she'd never end up dating him, but I have to say, Kat Von D does kind of come off as Ronnie's ideal woman.
Third Opener: Wargasm
According to Wikipedia, Wargasm are a metalcore / nu metal / hardcore techno hybrid, which could be something I would really love. It could also be a complete mess e.g. I Set My Friends On Fire. Although I have to say, I don't care if they're more abstractly referring to euphoria, that is a terrible name. It sounds like a parody of a metal band, or something a middle school boy would write. Or something I wrote when I was, like, 11 to gross out my friends. It manages to be worse than Orgy and Wristmeetrazor. (Whom as much as I love them, there's a good reason I went for the shirt that only has the acronym and the web URL, with the latter on the back and easier to cover, because that way it's more clearly a band and not uh...)
I think I'm landing on the "complete mess" interpretation. Wargasm's members are someone who looks and sounds like he's trying to poorly cosplay Eminem (well, did until he inevitably stripped), their drummer who seems to be in his underwear (again?), their seemingly lead female vocalist who has a very cool leather jacket paired with a fringe skirt that's so short as to basically not be there, their Synth table guy with pink hair and a fishnet tank top, and a guitarist who looks like he was shanghaied from a band that makes sense.
And their sound is completely disjointed, given my experience with both metal and both kinds of hardcore.
If I had a nickel for every time a drummer I saw in a band was pretty clearly not wearing pants, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Is this, like, a Thing of which I was not aware?
They're pretty good at screaming and mosh breakdowns, but there was no transition into that one so it's still musically disjointed.
Also, I don't know who originated the phrase "[emotion] songs for [different emotion] people", but I mostly associate it with / have seen it with August Burns Red, whose "angry songs for happy people" they are transparently ripping on with "angry songs for sad people", underneath their gods-awful logo.
No band of quality has a song in which the audience waves their middle fingers. Prove me wrong.
Also, I think their kerning and between word spacing is off.
There is only one other band I have ever seen restart a song and threaten the crowd with "we're gonna keep doing this until you get it right, so you need to get up and jump and such" due to what they deemed insufficient fan response, and that's Falling In Reverse. I can't explain why, but that crosses a line between standard stage banter and being just egregiously obnoxious.
"I don't do what you say. YOU do what I say!" -- Ronnie on the Australian tour
They're also uncomfortably horny, which I expected given their name. It doesn't mesh with me, especially not combined with their disjointed sound and that it feels like they're doing a striptease. Which there's nothing wrong with, but I don't really want to see it.
I am back in the lobby and will not be attending the rest of Wargasm's set because I'm sick of them and they were also doing strobe lights that physically hurt. Think it was their last song anyway.
Of course, now I'm thinking about how they compare vs. FIR in 2023 in terms of obnoxiousness. I hope they're less annoying in their everyday lives, but well, FIR that is kind of what you come for? These kids lack the panache to parade themselves around like that. Definitely the second most obnoxious behind FIR and second most uncomfortable behind the tiny show in Atlanta with the other drummer without pants on band I have ever seen.
So, of the openers, we have The Pretty Wild whom I honestly liked, Kat Von D who isn't my style but seemed well-executed and generally pleasant, and whatever that was. Which could have been my style were it less bad. They turned me off for bad lyrics, rap delivery, and musical transitions, and then kept me turned off for being annoying, horny, and annoyingly horny.
Headline (the one I came for): In This Moment
I've noticed a curious correlation -- the guys who show up in FIR shirts to non-EtF / FIR concerts also seem to be the ones who engage in annoying public displays of affection and/or must maintain physical contact with their girlfriends at all times. (e.g. that tall guy whose PM2024 shirt I was stuck staring at the back of through much of bullet for my Valentine's set and despised by the end)
if anyone infected with Ronnie slime is not in direct heterosexual contact with a woman the slime will take control of them and confess that they just want to fuck ronnie
And it is always guys. Femme-presenting out of place FIR fans are usually solo or in groups of friends.
It's probably a confounding variable which produces both effects, perhaps being insecure in your masculinity slash heterosexuality, being so annoying concerts are the only time your girlfriend puts up with you, regular misogyny, or all of the above.
The guy I've mostly gotten to observe with his Zombified shirt also has a jawline trans women would kill for and a very pretty blonde ponytail, so maybe it's "need to show I have a girlfriend so it's clear I am in fact a guy".
Or maybe they just like each other and are having fun at a mutually enjoyable event and not everything FIR fans do is evil, but it feels distinctly performative and isn't behavior I usually see. Whatever. Who knows. Don't cite me, Kay? I am not a sociologist and also hold a petty grudge.
Other people have decided it's acceptable to pull up floor, so I think I will too. I gotta say, I like this stage room's layout. It's never felt cramped or overheated, you never have to fight your way to the bathroom, and the screens with live cams on the stage mean visibility is pretty good even in the back.
holy shit, Maria's voice is if anything more chilling live esp on cleans
Note: they do some serious stagecraft, but despite the fire motif for the tour, they do smoke and fog, but not flames. I wonder if that's a general choice (maybe for the safety of band members) or if it depends on whether the venue allows flames.
Speaking of stage setup, the mannequin heads on sticks I have no prayer of photographing are remarkably legitimately creepy despite being a very simple and probably cheap element.
The only other bands I've seen who actually brought backup dancers are Ice Nine Kills and Motionless In White.
realized with the godmode haircut that Maria is pretty much exactly my visual type in women, but I am not sure if there's anyone into women for whom she isn't?
get the feeling I shouldn't be looking directly at the screen but doesn't mean I'm not and that I don't want to. This is the best visual performance I've seen since Wage War.
Also, utmost respect for Maria for calmly and directly calling in security to the front because crowdsurfers were coming over the barrier and in her own words, "no one is here to catch them. I've seen two fall on the ground and we can't have that, can we, ladies and gentlemen?"
I should download Heretic. Idk why I didn't. Although it might be like some other bands' early work where it's better live due to vocal development.
the strobe lights here are intense, but they don't feel painful like some others I've seen. I assume it's the speed or something.
Maria would be a great booer from The Princess Bride. Or hell, any kind of cryptic high fantasy prophet / witch type.
their guitarist (or possibly bassist, can't tell from this distance) has horns that look absolutely sick in the backlit silhouette against the screen. I want some sort of horned accessory, but I don't really like headbands or having stuff stuck to my face, and don't have enough hair for hair clips. I have hammered in a bunch of spikes to the hood of an old hoodie for a "crown of thorns" effect that's similar, though. (Need to finish that tomorrow before I leave.) Maybe if I can find some larger horns / spikes I can attach them to it, because glue, staples, and hammers / screws I can do. Just not sewing.
Ultimately, the set is kinda like PtV / SWS where I only really like about half of In This Moment's work. I love GodMode, but I think it took them a while to really establish a style that worked for them, so their earlier work doesn't do much for me. Especially with Maria's vocals, there's a clear adjustment in style and the development of something that works for her and with the character she wants to play. Hence the generic metalcore era, sex appeal to get views, and now with full confidence, high fantasy witch god-queen which is fucking badass complete with slick electronic / nu metal ish production. I feel like it really takes until Ritual for them to come into their own in terms of musical and thematic basis, since it really focuses in on supernatural and occult themes and using them for feminist power fantasy.
(Also, since she very frequently uses feminine terms for the main characters of her songs, which is totally valid, they don't all work for my specific demonic tendencies. While I think artists who change the gendered terms when they do covers are cowards because they're professionals and should be able to be a girl / gay for 3 minutes, I am not a professional and even if I respect them musically, given my deep connection to Edge, I can't resonate with specifically feminine aligned Edgy songs without getting dysphoric.)
There are a couple of In This Moment songs that were among EE's favorites. Hence why they didn't make it back in after assessment because yikes. 2 of them are on this setlist, so it'll be interesting to see how I react. Those being Roots, Sex Metal Barbie, and Big Bad Wolf.
Baby go ahead
I'll be your hatred and your pain
This is killing us all
I don't care if I fall
We're the dying, we are the damned
So go ahead
I'll be the villain you can blame
I'll be the belle of the brawl
Be the lust in us all
I'm the diva of the damned
You don't get to know anything about EE and her real life origins I haven't told you. Suffice to say that this resonated with her. Essentially, EE is "OK, fine, if you're going to call me a demonic psycho lesbian for having honest emotions as a queer, neurodivergent, nonhuman teenager, guess I'll be one and embody everything I'm dysphoric about since that's CLEARLY what you want!"
The hypersexuality that I was EXTREMELY dysphoric about was a major part of her character, and a major part of why she was killed in 2022 never to return. As is the self ID as problematic, evil, demonic, etcetera. Which I still do. I'm still a demon. But I think I've come to terms with it in a healthier way now. So listening to my baby edgelord formative songs feels...weird, because there's so much that actually IS me in there, but so much that...isn't and it's difficult to disentangle. You don't need to worry about me. I've been "recovered" since 2022. Turns out that the best antidote to RSD is having people who actually unconditionally like you, and for other kinds of dysphoria, it's being and being accepted as yourself. Oh, and also medication sure did work at stopping the 24/7 intrusive thought channel so I could actually progress.
Still, there are certain songs that evoke things just by way of how strongly a previous entity here resonated with them. I'm experiencing Feels, as the kids say, and I don't think it's exactly unpleasant. Feels like a suitable farewell to Memphis and everything it's done for / to me. A final "I'm sorry, it really wasn't your fault so I shouldn't have hated you for as long as I did" to that version of me. But it's still a departure. I am never going back to that place again. A thank you to me for trying as best they could and for forming things which still resonate today, and a fuck you to everybody who forced EE upon me.
"I was abused and possessed by a demon, but possessed them right back and killed them, absorbing their powers and reincarnating as my current form after effectively dying" is not just sona lore. It's honestly how I spiritually perceive my IRL backstory and current identity shaped by it, although with therapy and stuff, I can now separate the personal mythology stuff from the literal actual traumatic events in a healthier way than I did back in the day.
It seems that the fans who paid to bask in Maria's presence got to participate in the birthday wish to Evie from the band. I don't have a good enough view through the fog and haze to see how many they are or what the gender ratio is.
In This Moment also feels like every band member is putting in equal aesthetic effort to be interesting to look at, unlike some people.
It seems that they specifically included the "Monster Jam" to give the rest of the band the opportunity to show off, which is nice given that I suspect they usually get overlooked as "Maria Brink and some guys no one cares about." Means they get to show off their instrumental skills.
songs about werewolves are honestly just guaranteed to be a fun time; I have been on that train since even before Ronnie infected me, since, well, it's a logical edgy interpretation of Team Instinct.
It seems the monster jam also allowed for Maria to make a costume change, since for Big Bad Wolf, she has an adorable mask with the snout and pointy ears. She should hang out with Dead Rabbitts with their also adorable masks.
all right we got through two of EE's most favoritest songs which have pretty clear parallels to things I tend to avoid, and use feminine terms, and were able to just vibe and appreciate the power we have now and how far we have come; I count that as a win for us and for our recovery. There's some satisfying closure in that, in the same way as some similar boat songs when I saw Wage War.
I'm still here. I'm still a trans, autistic, straight'nt (? who knows?) demon snake. I'm still a motherfucking Edgemaster. It wasn't a phase, and you bastards have failed to kill me so now I can never die. The demon who was possessing me was me, or, well, it is now. I'm the motherfucking Enforcer, and it's just THE. I am not here to enforce anyone's will but my own. I don't belong to you. I don't belong to Ellendale.
I've recreated myself into a form I fucking love. You can not take that from me. I may be from here, but I am never going back to this place again. Even if I'm physically here (which gods willing, I won't be), you are not dragging me back to your distortion world. I am the master of my own fucking domain.
I'm the big bad wolf (or big bad chaoskampf snake), motherfucker. And I'm the one who decides that, not you.
Here's a bunch of pictures that don't do justice to the spectacle. This is by far the best, visually, show, I have seen since Ice Nine Kills and Motionless In White in 2023, or Wage War in 2024.
I saw an internet profile last night which proclaimed "if you can mask but are choosing not to, you are communicating that disabled people are unwelcome so block me."
I agree on principle, but I'm legitimately convinced that at least at my present locale, masking isn't safe for me. Logic being:
If the air up close to your face gets too hot, it seriously messes with thermoregulation.
I live in Southern Hell, where either being visibly trans / GNC / alternative or masking are perceived as affronts. I have gotten impolite comments about both of those, separately. Especially with fuckwads riding high from November onward, I'm not convinced that masking wouldn't get me shot. Best option is for me to draw as little attention to myself as possible, and unfortunately, if you aren't at a doctor's office, masking in a red state in 2025 counts as such.
So I guess I'm an ableist asshole.
To be honest, I probably fall under the "can't" category on grounds of both being in a hellscape and heat. If the air close to my face is too hot, I can't breathe and it makes the rest of me heat up even faster. So masking in the south for most of summer or in any people-packed environment is probably legitimately medically out, never mind the "will get me verbally attacked and I can't be sure it'll stop at verbally."
Also, I'm pretty convinced that either masking renders me completely impossible to understand, or the denizens of southern hell choose not to try to understand your speech if you are. So if I need to talk to anybody, I probably need to unmask just so they'll listen.
Maybe I'll return to masking in public once I'm further north, but even if I agree with the principle, (1) I don't appreciate feeling like you're calling me an asshole and (2) sir this is Flight Rising
the after everyone else in the house is asleep impulse for destruction
All summer, I've had the urge to delete all my forum posts, purge my bios, and otherwise "reinvent myself" online, mostly on FR but it pops up for other things. I'm not sure why. I don't think I want to do that, per se. I like my lair. I like my dragons. There's no longer anything in my forum posts that I object to (deleted those earlier). I'm overall quite satisfied with my cultivated online presences, but I still get the feeling every time I look at my profile that "hmm, what if..."
And no, I don't want to make a sub-lair. It's not that I have a new idea I'd like better. It's just a general destructive impulse. It isn't that I want to make something new instead; my creative urges have been pretty sporadic to nonexistent the whole season.
I'm kind of thinking that it isn't really about FR, but is more a general subset of my general vague desire to watch the world burn which has been lingering since November. I'm aware it would be bad for just about everyone if what I was leaving actually DID burn down behind me, but it'd make it easier. Wouldn't feel like cowardice or leaving my loved ones behind if I literally physically couldn't move back as opposed to it being for political reasons. So I'm hoping that it stops when I do move, and maybe once I have more to do so I'm not as bored.
While I fully intend to stick with the Enforcer handle in a broad sense because it feels like me and it's the right balance of distinctive and not too web-searchable (and isn't a reference to anything else but me), a while back, I complimented a user on FR with the username "Rattlesnake" on theirs. They just informed me that they changed usernames, so Rattlesnake is now available. I'm vaguely considering changing to it, just to see how it feels and to see something Different.
Gods, I'm so bored and filled with general and specific anxiety and existential dread, which metabolizes into hatred because I'm full of slime. And I'm not sure what to do about it. Damned well hope it'll fix itself once I'm out of the Southern hellscape and have goals and things to do and things to look forward to. As it stands, save that I'm going to a concert tomorrow, the only thing I've really had to look forward to this summer is leaving.
OK, I know that it's just that the body has decided to manifest emotional stress as physical chronic pain (like more than usual) because it is being an asshole, but the only valid reason to wake up this tired and with this much leg and back pain after not doing anything you recall to cause it is if you are a werewolf. Which I don't think I exactly am, although jury's out on why my nails have been growing so oddly even with open toed shoes. (Ronnie did infect me with his him, but I don't think that's part of it.)
look, this is where I go to be evil. idk what you expected. I warned you in advance
Disclaimer that murder is wrong. Even though ultimately, at least half of people in the US would probably be more helpful as sources of hydrocarbon decomposition.
Fuck reconciliation. If you want me dead, same to you, buddy.
While it wouldn't be fair to children or anybody else who's stuck there, part of me wants what I'm leaving to burn down behind me. I would like to stop caring, please.
Yes, I know that once I am out of the US, I should steam with less homicidal rage in the interest of making friends and influencing people. I don't think that'll be an issue, since being in the US and how everyone sucks (p = .05) is why I seethe with homicidal rage. I wouldn't hate everyone if they didn't give me a good reason.
Anyone who uses "liberal" as an insult should be individually killed.
so, runetails (petsite I just started playing) has a pseudo-RPG "dungeon" mechanic, and one of the enemies in that is "acorn cultists".
acorns are also the site's currency.
so, are those just capitalists?
just learned about this ridiculous long beast from XKCD. the baby
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanystropheus
basal archosaur thing probably. has better skeletons than a lot of things so we are confident in its stupid long neck but not what it was for. leading theory seems to be that it used it to fish things out of the water from the shore
peak gamer setup: lying in bed playing ice cream machine on phone (because today is a low HP / MP back pain day), with laptop next to me to refresh for esophagor every 6 minutes ('cause I can't switch tabs off an HTML5 game on my phone without it losing my score)
I could have sworn this strip included getting fresh sheets from the dryer, but it doesn't. I like it, so I'm including it anyway. Anyway, there's just something about sheets from the dryer, at least briefly, even when it's 95 degrees out and horrifically humid. (35 Celsius for folks in civilized countries, although Fahrenheit does have advantages in ways other imperial units don't. [xkcd])
Like with Atreyu, I really don't see the EtF / FIR comparison with Underoath, unless Ronnie and/or Epitaph are trying to make them sound harder than they are. Yes, they are an emo / metalcore / post-hardcore hybrid, which Escape the Fate nominally is, but well, they and Atreyu are both going at it from an "emotional hardcore" angle. Ronnie goes at it from the poppified angle, which is to clarify, completely valid. Pop and pop punk are valid genres, which a lot of people like and contain plenty of culturally important and musically interesting stuff. I am not the kind of metalhead or punk fan who considers "metal" or "hardcore" to be value judgments as opposed to descriptions of style.
But ultimately, Falling In Reverse / Dying Is Your Latest Fashion IS metalcore / post-hardcore in that they blend metal and punk elements, but their punk elements are much poppier than most and with rare exceptions (e.g. Don't Mess With Ouija Boards, Guillotines 1 and 4, and Dragging Dead Bodies In Blue Bags Up Really Long Hills), they don't really do metal and/or core structural elements. It's kind of in a similar vein to the earliest "emo" bands being hardcore punk with angsty lyrics and most metalcore until the mid-00s being hardcore punk with metal instrumentation, in that DIYLF / FIR is like your Falls Out Boy, Panics At Discos, All American Rejects-es, Taking Back Sundays, and Hawthorne Heights-es, except with metal instrumentation and somewhat more focus on TBS and HH's sporadic screaming.
I've seen FIR described as "pop with loud guitars" as a derogatory label, but that's honestly accurate to what they are. Especially after TDIMIY, they're not really guitar focused and they don't do breakdowns, so they're metalcore in a broad sense of fusing some number of metal and punk elements, but go at it from a much poppier angle. Honestly, I'd say that FIR is less "Underoath or Norma Jean with Katy Perry choruses" and more "Katy Perry with Underoath or Norma Jean's instrumentation and lyrical themes". Which is a valid thing to be. I just have to imagine that if fans of Atreyu or Underoath read that CD sticker and picked up There's No Sympathy For The Dead / Dying Is Your Latest Fashion, they were pretty disappointed.
Thus far, the correlates I have for Underoath are Atreyu for structure, with some loose resemblance in their earliest work to Rites Of Spring, Beauty To Ashes, Most Precious Blood, or similar mostly-core emo / metalcore, and early (as in, Craig era) Blessthefall for vibes, once the extremely overt and uncomfortable Christianity of their first 2 EPs is dropped.
P.S. -- Other probably-derogatory descriptions of Falling In Reverse that I've found amusing and entirely accurate include "ADHD the band", "I want to get a restraining order against this man after hearing this song", and "The Drug In Me Is You is one of the gayest albums I've ever heard."
genre was invented by bathroom companies to sell more bathrooms
i might just skip their first 2 EPs save the first one to get an example of style and go straight to where they start getting relevant post-hardcore crossover for my personal comfort
well i'm on the first one right now since i always do things in chronological order (or if truncated, their first and last release)
and looking through AZlyrics, after their first two, they're into the more standard space for nominally-Christian metalcore where the only difference is that they don't swear. it's standard angst and telling fictional stories. still, IDK when baby Ronnie encountered them, but that first EP still does paint quite the picture. I assume it's a standard case of first EPs tending to be rougher around the edges (and possibly them going ham on the Christianity to try to get SOME sort of audience and signing before switching to things the post-hardcore audience vibed more with once they had a genre fanbase), but 'tis just...unfortunate.
Good news is that it seems things past their first EP are moderately less...overt, but that's gonna sour the rest of my assessment until Erase Me (2018) at which point I know they are no longer christian (derogatory).
looks like per interviews cited by wikipedia, they mostly moved out of overtly christian work ca. the mid-late 00s
...perhaps this is an influence on Falling In Reverse in that it's why Ronnie's lyrics are so awful. applying underoath sensibilities to his religion that worships him
which prequel quite clearly and literally canonizes so
good news is that songs are mostly screaming so I can pretend lyrics aren't there for assessment purposes, but I do make sure to look up lyrics to make sure I find them ideologically acceptable before putting a song in my library, and oof I am not comfortable with that
I was assuming they'd be in the Blessthefall / Memphis May Fire vein of "generic angst but god will save you" or songs about a he/him using hero who may or may not be Jesus but isn't stated, or songs indistinguishable from edgy Christian symbolism. Not...that.
...yikes. when wikipedia said underoath was overtly christian, they meant it. bordering on christian (derogatory). i mean it's perfectly fine 90s metalcore (in that it's mostly hardcore punk with metal instrumentation) musically but UH...might not be comfortable with anything until they abandoned christianity for not being good for them. which they at least announced in 2018; idk when they gave up on faith focused musical output
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/underoath/burdeninyourhands.html
real bad boys have back pain
work computer does windows 11 with a bloatware remover run-through, copilot disabled in the registry, and everything else I can do to make it as tolerable as possible. frivolity computer (the one I am typing this on) dual boots between linux mint and windows 7, because those are your two best options for Windows Without The Bollocks.
Looked up maximum system requirements for XP / 7 re: my dual booting plans. Draggyslair would overflow XP on RAM, but not as much as you might think. I'm really impressed at the futureproofing, since I can't envision a computer in 2009, let alone 2001, that would have that much space and RAM. And the 7 max supported numbers that I could find are for Home, so for all I know, professional or server may be even more ludicrous. So, I don't think dual booting 7 and Linux is going to be a problem at all.
Windows XP maxima: 4 GB RAM / 2 TB hard drive space. Can go as high as 16 TB with external hard drives, supposedly.
Windows 7 maxima: 8 GB RAM (Home Basic), 16 GB RAM (Home Premium) / 2 TB hard drive space. Apparently 2 TB is a 32-bit thing (which still apparently applies to 64 bit XP / 7?) and you need to do weird partition magic to get more.
For context, my pretty high tier model year 2021 gaming laptop has 16 gigs RAM / 1 TB drive space. I couldn't find specific gig numbers for how much GPU power Windows 7 supports, but it can apparently happily use up to 8 GPUs / cores at once. I have 4. According to one thread on Reddit, if you do horrible things, Windows 7 could theoretically go up to 128 gigabytes of RAM, which I don't think ANYTHING currently on the market has.
For all their faults as a company, Microsoft does past and future compatibility pretty damned well. (well, except the bottleneck in getting Windows XP / 7 programs to 8 onwards due to DirectX and stuff having problems, and the awkward limbo state of Windows 95 / 98 programs that are too Windowsy for DOSBox and too 16-bit for modern Windows.)
But at least within MS's own products, they do a pretty good job. There are fascinating videos of folks upgrading the same computer from Windows 1.0 through Windows 10 and opening the same document on every one, and they...work.
one day when I feel like a project and have nothing better to do (today is not that day) maybe I'll go into TigoTago and add album art to all, uh, 6,809 according to Explorer, of my music files since it's a fuck of a lot better at it than native file system
unfortunately, it seems to be windows exclusive. my folks own an absurd quantity of windows install discs and licenses my dad scavenged from previous office moves, so I talked him into letting me take a Windows XP and 7 install disc with me to Canada. I'm hoping at least one of them works to dual boot on my current laptop, so that way I can run my frivolous Windows programs, which are all pretty old. like, what I'm talking is TigoTago (designed for 7), Flash Player Projector (can run in WINE but is apparently finicky), and maybe some old games. everything I do would run on windows 7 and I can just have that partition not touch the internet. question is whether or not windows 7 has maximum system requirements and would freak out if my specs are too good. photoshop and MS office will be running on my work computer since they are ultimately useful / necessary for my work with their specific quirks, although I also use photoshop for compressing images for my site and making buttons / graphic design edits, which CSP isn't great at.
from raw yewchube download dump to fully metadata-ed folder indistinguishable from a CD rip in 48 seconds. it used to take me hours to go through hundreds of files manually to do this in windows explorer after a wave of assessments. if this software product were personified i would kiss them on the mouth
okay, I know damned well that "too many pronouns" doesn't refer to my first thought because this song is from 2002 but I'm not sure what it DOES refer to. probably just emo flavor text I guess but it's an odd thing to encounter in the wild
Now, I do find it pretty funny that Taking Back Sunday is also well-known for ex-members starting new bands and no one involved being mature about it, which DOES make them a good EtF / FIR comparison, but at the time Epitaph was marketing There's No Sympathy For The Dead from their new sweet little guys, they wouldn't have known that would become a relevant comparison...
Now, I guess if they were clairvoyant, it would explain why they thought signing Ronnie from prison when he had no songs, no members, no name for his band, and it wasn't known how long he would be there (at least according to contemporary interviews with Craig, the original estimate was 10 years) was a good idea. Personally, I'd think getting lottery numbers, or getting Ronnie and Max into couple's therapy and rehab, would be a better use for it if they were.
I'm presently assessing Taking Back Sunday, and don't especially like them. They're one of the huge scenemo canon names and are namedropped as a comparison to EtF in early Epitaph marketing sources, so I want to give them a fair shake, but even besides how I don't really like pop punk, something about their vocal style is just bouncing off me and I can't explain why.
I can't define anything clearly different in the melodic-whining clean vocals here from The Used, Alesana, or early Ronnie, but I like those and those feel like they work and they don't here, and I can't explain why. Can you listen to some snippet of this and tell me if you think I'm justified, and that there actually IS something wrong with the vocals? Something about it feels off but I can't place what. (this is the song on which I noticed it, and also one of their most popular)
From what I can tell from Wikipedia, the main thing they have in common with Escape the Fate is several ex-members playing the ol' Uno Falling In Reverse Card (before FIR existed) and being little shits about it. like, it's I guess moderately harder than your All American Rejects-es and Falls Out Boy, but it's ultimately pretty generic pop punk with minimal post-hardcore / emo aspects, and Tell All Your Friends is their emo-est album.
what my mom thinks I'm getting is that everybody else I listed either has one vocalist or when they have two, either one does the screaming and one does the cleans or they layer and have meaningfully different vocal ranges. taking back sunday seems to have two vocalists, but they don't have that different of ranges, nor do they seem to blend or harmonize on each other, so it just ends up feeling disjointed
Theme is 90% by Enforcer; the rest is thoughts.page default. Part of the Thoughts Webring. Kick ass, take names, fuck Ronnie Radke (not literally).
