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hey Syl! been a long time, how have you been?

Added to the list thanks for the recommendation. I remember watching clips from this anime but haven't really checked out the name. Thanks again for the source

Randomly stumbled upon and thanks for the recommendation, got any more?

It's always fun to try something new, and I decided to do this kind of profile.

And you're right about the Manga, the story was simple but the message really helped you understand about perspective in life. I'm glad you were able to move forward with your life, that's nice to hear.

Thanks! It took me a while to design that one, but I'm glad it turned out great. I also love Star Strings yori, it doesn't need that much of story but it hits well, definitely one of my favourites.

Hi! First of all, thanks for the friend request

a spoiler has appeared!

Did I not journal about Josee to Tora to Sakana-tachi?!?! D:<

I haven't really looked through your stacks as I still have my plant to watch but I will check them when I'm out of anime to watch. As for the character, I know they're from an anime but I don't specifically know what anime it is, I just searched for random memes and what made the most interesting one for me my profile pic.

Oh, I guess I explained it a bit wrong, I mean I follow those who have the same taste (specifically when we have the same favorites) or those with a lot of interest stacks, I followed you for the latter reason. As for me giving So Ra No Wo To! a 7, honestly I can't remember most of it, just bits and pieces, I watched it like three years ago and just guessed what score I will give it. Thanks for your recommendations, appreciate it.

I like going through my friends' friends list, not to be creepy but I'm looking for people who have the same taste as me and have a lot of interest stacks in case I want recs. Enjoy the ride or more like you need to prepare some tissues, Clannad is good but you should look forward to Clannad: After Story.

Hello! Looking over the past letters that I haven’t responded to and the new ones that have come through…yeah, it’s gonna be a monstrous task of Herculean proportions if I wanna go about responding to all of it lol. So, I’ve decided that if I spend at least an hour everyday from now on writing something that responds to bits and pieces of what you say throughout your letters that I’ll eventually catch up…maybe. Yeah, that’s never gonna happen as long as you keep writing lol. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, it’s not really necessary to reply to it all as long as I’ve read it I think. I’ll only talk about what evokes the most thoughts. I should also timestamp everything so you know where it’s from, but I don’t know how to do that through BBCode and I don’t feel like searching up so we’re gonna have to do it like this for now lmao:

On June 21st,


I get what you mean. I mean, sitting here and thinking about it now…it’s just…yeah. I’ve never heard a jazz song with such a dark atmosphere. It all starts with that screaming in the hotel
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
And then we hear these screeching synthesizers overlay it towards the end that almost sound like crickets chirping in the night, and gives the scream this sort of echo effect that really makes it feel that Kendrick is not just the only person in this room but goes further to suggest that he is the only thing in this room. It’s just him and his thoughts, everything else is empty. These crickets fade out as somber piano notes interlude into the introduction of the saxophone, both of them power up in sound and volume as we hear the second scream, this time giving a sense of a powerful darkness soon to overcome. More elements are introduced like the chiming sounds that almost sounds like a xylophone as the third scream ruptures the transitioning melody of the saxophone and then we hear one of my favorite parts of the song (instrumentally speaking): that minor guitar chord. If you isolate that sound and essentially strip it of its context, it sounds just like any basic guitar riff. However, placed within the dark, moody atmosphere that’s set up by everything else, it brings another source of tension into frame. It amps everything up, giving life to the dying piano and contrasting beautifully with all the depressive buildup. Oh my god, I’m starting to tear up and I’m just talking about the first 20 seconds of the song LMAO…but yeah, u is without a doubt one of my favorites on the album too. Probably one of my favorite Kendrick songs in general, and definitely the one that I consider to be his bravest. This song is a real try not to cry challenge lmfao. Musically, lyrically, and even the way he changes his vocal delivery from a pained expression of guilt and sorrow in the first half into just a complete tearful breakdown in the second half as the alcohol starts to kick in and he starts giving into his despair. It’s all so heart-rending that now I feel justified by always getting so angry whenever I see people reduce all of rap to “vulgar lyrics” and “repetitive trap beats”. I mean, even the songs they’re thinking of when they say such things are probably much more creative than they will ever realize. For example, I don’t like Playboi Carti’s music. I think it’s way too much style over substance. However, I can recognize that he’s one of the most monumental influences in the hip hop sound right now and the way he’s pushing cloud rap and trap beats to their creative limits is honestly mind-blowing. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for people like Lil Pump. His music is just garbage, and I really hope that’s not the image that people who hate rap have of it lol.

Here’s an example of Carti’s music, where he literally adds shaking jewelry as an instrument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwdsnGfrd-k
It’s probably everything you hate about modern music, being about sex, drugs, and whatever the hell “rockstar shit” means. But at the same time, holy shit man the vibe of this song is unmatched. I’ve never heard anything like this before, and I love it when mainstream artists take big risks like this. You can tell that Carti actually cares about making music that he thinks sounds good, even if I don’t think it does lmao. But yeah, even something as overplayed and overdone as trap still has a lot of room for innovation. Just look at Metro Boomin’s discography, for example…:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThRbi74tkLw

What am I even talking about now? Lol, I lost track. Ah yeah, people who misjudge rap. Well, I don’t think they’re very common in the US anymore, now that rap has arguably taken rock’s place as the most popular genre of music. I’m glad that people like Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West are mainstream, but at the same time when people like Drake co-occupy that space…my opinion on Drake is kinda iffy lol. There’s a lot of underground artists that I’d love to talk about too but that’s enough rap talk for now I suppose. How’d I go from talking about something so beautiful and moving, Kendrick Lamar’s u, to Drake? Lmao

Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Yeah, I can see why this song hits so hard for you. It’s sad to say this, but it’s definitely relatable.



I regret not being there to help you. Looking back at it, I should’ve checked in on you and have been more encouraging. I was asking some of the same questions you’re asking now a couple months ago lol. Like whether I consider or care about you. Am I so heartless that I blame someone for a failure that seemed almost inevitable? Well, the history involving you isn’t really what’s been on my mind, but it’s definitely an example of a blemish in my behavior that’s crafted me into the mess that I am today. But lifting yourself out from abject circumstances through sheer willpower seems so unfair to expect of someone. We were upset by the fact that you flaked out on us in order to improve on yourself but ended up not doing much of anything towards making progress, and so it was a group decision to ask whether you wanted to stay a part of the server. But honestly, I think that was fucked up. My intention wasn’t to pressure you to leave, and I’m sure you understood that, but why hadn’t I been more supportive? I think a little bit of support goes a long way. I didn’t even try. That says a lot about me as a person, doesn’t it? I have a lot of growing to do. And like you’ve been saying, fuck the me that thinks that this is who I am as a person, because it has no bearing on whether I’ll continue staying this way. I’ve come to a decision. I am someone who cares deeply about my friends. But, I have to be selective about who I can regard as a friend. They are people that truly care about me, and people that I care about in return.

Yesterday I was talking to someone, but it wasn’t a conversation. It was more so just them ranting about many different stupid things about how sensitive people have become and feminism and all that. People who are so sensitive to sensitive people are the true bitches in this society lmao. I mean really, if these people aren’t bothering you, why do you have an issue with them? It seems like you’re just being an instigator and flaring up conflict where it doesn’t belong because you have nothing better to do with your negativity. Well, I wish I could’ve said something along these lines, but he clearly wasn’t having it. Every time I tried to talk he kept talking over me. It wasn’t a conversation or debate so much as it was a one-sided rant. So frustrating. I don’t think of people like that as my friends. I don’t want to be used as a brainlessly nodding yes-man just because I’m at times shy to interject and I prioritize maintaining a polite discourse. I think true friends are like the people we had on the server. I’ve never been in such a close friend group before, and it’s a shame to see it go and dissipate into this amorphous remnant of what had been something truly special. We still talk to each other. I think we still all see each other as friends. But it’s tough to think about it all. I think I’m still blamed for what happened, and while I don’t think I was wrong to have done what I did, I definitely went about it the wrong way. I reacted emotionally instead of logically, and that was my major pitfall. I assumed that my emotions would be understood. Everything I said still seems clear to me, but it’s whatever. It’s all in the past, and I’ve moved on from it.

From now on, here’s to becoming a better friend and a better person.



It’s a lot more existential than that. There’s a lot of people in my life that I’ve failed and continue to fail, there’s a lot of people in my life that have failed me and continue to fail. Reading about your thoughts on your dad reminded me that I feel the same way towards my parents. It’s a mutual failure, but I can’t help but think that it rests more on the fault of the parent than on the child. Whether that’s a matter of me just thinking in a way that’s more convenient and advantageous for me is irrelevant because it’s something that I find is deeply rooted in strong logic. For most of my life, I’ve felt like a lost child. My parents hardly guided me through anything. They encouraged me to learn English over their native language of Bangla and now I’ve grown up to become someone who can hardly speak the language of my own parents. I mean, this is an incredibly common occurrence in the vast majority of immigrant households I’ve seen, but it’s not right. How can we move on and pretend that this is normal? And how can my parents gaslight me into thinking that I was the only child like this when I was a kid? They chastised me for being only able to speak English yet that’s the way I’ve been taught. They’re completely unsupportive in my efforts to learn Bangla, yet it’s something I’m expected to just know. It makes me so mad just thinking about it. My parents are people who claim to love and support me yet it feels so fake at the same time. How can you shamelessly put so much random pressure on your own child and act dumbfounded and stupefied when they can’t handle it? Or, how can you shamelessly suggest setting up an arranged marriage with some girl I don’t know in Bangladesh WHEN I’VE EXPLICITLY TOLD YOU THAT I HAVE NO INTENTION TO GET MARRIED? Why don’t they even try to understand me? I feel like those edgelords right now, “no one understands me” lol. But I don’t know. I’ve only recently come to terms with how lonely I am. How lonely I’ve always been. I feel trapped in my own mind. I don’t trust anyone. Does someone like me deserve to have friends? The cycle of pain perpetuates itself. I totally get why people in worse situations think the solution is to just become emotionally numb and detached.

Anyways, that’s enough of my stupid venting. I respect that you responded so earnestly. I’m thinking about why what you said made me feel so emotional, and I’ve come to the realization that you’re one of the few people to have ever taken my emotions so seriously. I was used to being ignored so the second that I started getting attention within the past year I think I became a bit of an addict. Talking about my emotions now only feels like an extension of that. It feels like whining about my issues is a pitiful way of prolonging that ray of attention. It’s why I’ve started to restrain myself from using venting chat.

I’m running out of energy to talk, and it’s been way past an hour lol. See ya.

Hey Sylicone. It’s been a while since I last wrote a letter, a couple weeks or so. I think these past few weeks have been some of the lowest for me. Well, my emotions always go in cycles and I assume it’s the same for everyone else, but I don’t remember ever feeling this melancholic and defeated for so long ever before. Am I feeling better? I’m not quite sure. I’ve come to a certain few realizations. My ego is a lot more fragile than I thought it was. I have a lot less willpower than I believed I was capable of. And, finally, I’m kind of a pathetic person. Not so much that I feel meaningless, it’s more like I’ve been feeling that my being here has somehow come to the detriment of everyone and everything else. Well, this last one I know is just an irrational thought. But I don’t know. Everything that once felt certain and near feels so fleeting and far away now. That’s enough about me though.

Your journey through To Pimp A Butterfly made me really happy! I was first exposed to Kendrick Lamar in middle school through his album DAMN. and I was captivated by his ability to express so many complex themes in his lyrics while having some of the best flows, wordplay, and overall amazing sonic quality. It almost feels as if DAMN. has a song for every mood, and it’s one of those albums that’s helped me grow a lot as a person in so many areas of my life. It’s helped me become more in tune with my emotions, it’s helped me become a better thinker, and honestly I think it’s helped me become a better storyteller myself. Around that time I was also listening to good kid, m.A.A.d city but it wouldn’t be until a couple years later that I sat down and took the time to listen through the whole album. And GODDAMN. I thought DAMN. was the best album I heard but good kid immediately became a strong competitor. All of Kendrick’s work is conceptual in nature (i.e., revolving around a strong, central idea or a string of concepts that are structured and linked in an intentional way), but good kid has a stronger focus on telling stories from Kendrick’s past and sending a very clear message: that Kendrick is Compton’s human sacrifice. I’ll leave it to you to explore the album on your own and find out what that means if you ever wish to do that.

Now, the day I discovered To Pimp A Butterfly...the day I discovered this album was another reckoning of its own. TPAB is a lot more similar to good kid than it is to DAMN., which makes sense since it comes right after good kid in his discography and right before DAMN., and now that I think about it I actually listened to DAMN. the year that it came out. Wow, that’s interesting lol. Anyhow, I think you understand what I mean when I say that TPAB is straight up some of the densest and most meaningful work of all time. I think it’s Kendrick’s greatest work, and the word “masterpiece” falls short in every way as a descriptor for it. So, it's finally time to look more closely into your responses…



Yeah, I don’t feel like it’s proper to respond if you don’t feel like you’re in the right place mentally to do it. And for me, that’s now!...eh, as close as I’ll get to being ready for it lol. I want to write this letter over the course of one session so that I’ll be able to send something to make up for the whole overextended absence. I mean, I kinda disappeared on you lol. Sorry about that.


CLAMP’s oeuvre is infamous for having characters from their previous works making sudden appearances in their manga lol. You know something is CLAMP almost instantly because of their iconic artstyle, but these crossovers really do go above and beyond in making it feel like everything they make exists in its own universe separate from the entire world of manga. And seeing characters from Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle appear in xxxHOLiC was definitely a fun experience. I’m sure that many other authors do crossovers like this, but I think that the vast majority do it in a lot more subtle ways. Another example I can think of concerning crossovers is how Makoto Shinkai occasionally reintroduces old characters in his new work. I’m not sure why I thought of that after mentioning subtle references, because his crossovers aren’t really subtle at all lol.



Ah, that’s perfectly fine. You’re already starting at a better place than most people by admitting this lol. In truth, it takes many listens for me until I feel like I truly understand an album, and I have to listen to it in different ways depending on how much I care about dissecting it. For [i]TPAB[i/], all of Kendrick’s albums, and any album I think is amazing in general: my first listen is always without the lyrics. It’s always with the intention of getting a feel for the songs and the album musically and gathering the first impressions based on the bits and pieces I get from throughout the project. Also, going through something by an artist I like is always (well, I should say “usually” since sometimes their work can disappoint lol) a fun experience and I’m not so serious of a person that I sit down and analyze everything before moving on. Basically, the main purpose of the first listen is to just have fun lol. My second listen is with the lyrics in front of me, and there’s no rules for it or anything. If there’s a bar or a line that struck me enough to look more into it then I do further research. My main focus here is to just generally get a better idea of what’s being said. The rest of my listens from then on are either for fun if I enjoy how the album sounds or for deeper analysis. I’m excited to start doing the music blog to get a deeper relationship with this stuff, honestly I might start as soon as tomorrow!

Oh, I do want to say that I liked your approach of trying to understand the general meaning of a song before moving on. It’s just not something that I feel works for me lol. I wouldn’t be able to contain the desire to listen to the next song XD



Wesley’s Theory is one hell of a song. That beautiful fusion of funk and jazz serves as the perfect backdrop for the start of this album, where Kendrick goes on to continue weaving pretty much every single genre of music associated with Black culture into one magnificent tapestry. And I’m sure you already understand why he took this approach for the beats lol. To be honest with you, I think this song goes strongly underappreciated and overlooked by the community. It’s far from the best song on the album I think, but that’s only because this album is so replete with amazing songs that I’d say it likely suffers from the subconscious (or very conscious) comparison to the rest of it in the minds of hip hop heads. Well, whatever reason it is, I still think this is one of my favorite intros to an album.

I can’t express enough just how happy and grateful it makes me feel knowing that you went through listening to this album with actual sincerity. I’m still in shock lmao.



Hm, I should probably go through the playlist myself and add my own thoughts to these songs, but that would definitely make this way too long lol. I guess for now I should focus primarily on responding to the first letter and tomorrow I’ll respond to the next and so on.



All wonderful and powerful songs, though I find it almost impossible for me personally to relisten to These Walls lol. It’s a great song, but it’s one of the weaker ones for me because of the fact that I don’t enjoy relistening to it. But yeah, not every song has to have infinite replayability or anything of course. I think it definitely accomplished what it wanted to do quite effectively.

Now u on the other hand…yeah, I’m at a loss for words to describe it. This is the most vulnerable song in Kendrick’s entire discography. It’s incredibly moving, perhaps one of the best examples I can think of that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that music is an art and that just like any artform, it’s a means of expression. The somber overtones at the beginning, the way the song completely switch ups, the way the sound bounces between your ears during the transition, and so much more. A masterpiece of a song. The pinnacle of musical expression.



Yeah lol. Completely different feel from the last song. It’s almost as if he wants us to move on and forget about everything he expressed in the previous song for a little bit, like when your friend shares something depressing about themselves and brings up a wildly different topic to help the conversation move on. At the same time, the sobering reflection of u is in a way the perfect primer to the bombastic glory anthem that is Alright. And thematically, we notice Kendrick beating himself down over being a failure of a leader in one song and then taking up the mantle again and trying to be a better leader in the next. We see here a perfect example of why I think that TPAB is kind of naive at certain points. The optimism is vibrant and dazzling, and uplifts me whenever I hear it without fail, but this is the point in the album where it really starts feeling like Kendrick is trying to take the role of a savior. He wants to help the Black community lift themselves up with this album. To realize the brutal impact of history and to explore the internal issues that exist within the community. However, as we see in his reflections through his latest work Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, there is no such thing as a savior. And if there is, it’s not Kendrick. No matter how much he tries, it’s impossible to save the world on your own. Kendrick is ultimately just one piece of the puzzle, and his music, no matter how powerful, meaningful, and motivational it is, is only one step in the right direction.

Changing the world takes a mountain of effort on everyone’s part, and it seems like all artists that try to impart something life-changing with their music like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole comes to the inevitable realization that they have to prioritize healing themselves over healing the world. In Section. 80, Kendrick takes a look around his world and identifies everything that’s wrong. In good kid, m.A.A.d city, he goes through his past and identifies how all of the evil around him has impacted him as a person and expresses his desire to save his friends from this hell. He also makes a lot of promises in this album. However, in u we find out that he failed one of his promises in good kid, he failed to be there for his people when they most needed it. In To Pimp A Butterfly he shifts his focus onto the Black community and the US as a whole and tries to use his platform to spread a message that makes people think and start working towards solutions. And to an extent, he was successful. Alright became the anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, and songs like The Blacker The Berry continue to haunt the minds of everyone who heard it. However, in DAMN., he makes another important realization: humans are even more fucked up and lost than he had anticipated. He explores this in an immaculate dissertation of an album that delves into what he personally identifies and the most defining feelings, emotions, and moods in his life and draws distinctive contrasts between these expressions to themselves and the world around him. Funnily enough, DAMN. is the only album of his to receive a Pulitzer Prize even though the popular consensus is that good kid and TPAB are fundamentally deeper albums. But I understand why the Pulitzer committee gave the award to DAMN., it’s a heart-rending project for sure. Finally, his most recent album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers is essentially him telling us that he’s moved on from his goal of saving the world and that his most important motivation in life at the current moment is saving himself and his family. Well, obviously everything is a lot more complex and nuanced than what I’m suggesting, but the only way to really get through the whole message is listening to it on your own and forming your own thoughts lol. Honestly I’m not even sure whether anything I say about music or media in general is the author’s actual intention, but that’s beautiful in its own way. This is just the meaning I got generally from his albums. Wow, that was a huge tangent lmao. I apologize for rambling.

I think I’ve had enough talk about Kendrick for now lol. Glad to see you going through Katawa Shoujo, and the other visual novels you mentioned seem interesting. I’ve never watched Demi-chan wa Kataritai, so definitely gotta look into that too.



Thanks. To put it short as I said before, I’ve been kinda awful lol. But things are looking a little bit better at least. See ya tomorrow