unfortunately they've all blended together in my memory, not helped by them being shown randomly in park hotels and that past a certain year they get really safe. I think the short I remember most clearly from my childhood is moving day. lots of good business, especially with the piano. I also remember really liking donald's crime (which I bought on itunes, wow) for just how melodramatic it got.

also this may be recency bias talking since I rewatched a few in the more recent past but I really like the goofy how to shorts. in particular how to be a detective sticks out with a really smart marrying of series format with genre parody, replacing the usual smarmy narrator with a just-as-phony mobster.

not at all qualified to give advice on music composition, since (other than the sukeban soundtrack) I haven't properly finished a song in about a decade—trying to make music solo is hard, y'all, always open to collabs—but I can apply stuff that I'd mostly say regardless of artistic medium to music

first: if you like an artist's work and want to do something similar, don't try to figure it out in a vacuum. go study their influences. given that their influences have influences this is of course potentially an endless rabbit hole, but 1. you don't want to just xerox their work and 2. having a better grasp on not just what is there but why it was put there makes it easier to not only use that specific technique, but also to think more deliberately about yr own choices. even if you're a more intuitive artist than an analytical one, you need a toolbox to work with.

second: the question on your mind when you're trying to analyze art should be "why am I being presented this, in this way?" a cool thing about music in particular is that it's really easy to put this into practice. if you're interested in how a song works, try to transcribe it. if you don't have the ear for that yet, try your best and then look up a chord chart or sheet music. maybe as transcription practice, try to correct their transcription, because it's probably very wrong. then play through the song. getting the sound into your fingers makes it much easier to notice when certain musical ideas recur across a discography or across a genre. is the song primarily on a different instrument than you play? are you a singer and it's an instrumental? even better. now you're learning arrangement, in a very practical sense. beyond transcription, especially if you can't play an instrument, try to break apart the song on a structural level. mark verse/chorus/bridge (or refrain/bridge in ballad form (pls look up ballad form)), noting where the same section sounds different, how the lyrics and music seem to reinforce each other or stand at odds.

third: cribbing from bill wurtz here. (google "fagen escape" bill wurtz to find reposts of his writing on this. 3 up borrowing in particular was like "oh holy shit that IS a common thing isn't it.") theory is really useful but it's worth figuring out some concepts on yr own and having a shorthand for them. I'm bad at applying this, the concepts that stick in my brain are either expressed in something approximating theory (ii-V-I of IV) or are just called, like, "THAT progression," but it's still helpful to me to realize that I don't have to drain myself trying to find a theoretical explanation if my goal is practical usage. helpful to at least know the popular name (e.g. royal road) but not. necessary.

yes!!

I hate that both of these are ones I don't really want to go too deep into the personal on but, like. what more to say beyond "I have reasons to want the catharsis of revenge and can identify with someone in a similar boat, esp with the gendered aspect" and "I am a furry"

I guess...catgirls are an interesting topic because they're part of the category of girls marked in some additional way that allows a closeted trans girl to more easily let herself want to be them without immediately dismissing the idea. you want the tail and the ears. and also to be in some way feline. and culturally feline is equated to feminine. but you aren't quite as forced to acknowledge that

I do think part of the personal appeal now is the same weird girl appeal of denpa-kei, being openly not normative and other people just have to accept that. plus you get a tail

those are core chloecore for sure ^_^ but I'm re-answering this because I wanted to actually go in-depth even if it means more sharing than I'd usually like:

female denpa-kei characters definitely speak to me a lot in the alienation from the body as it is perceived by others. also an extent to which I wish I could outwardly be that weird (I always hung out with weird girls, I always liked weird girls in fiction) and that beholden to impulse. I mask a lot, and I don't know how to let go of that. I have trouble letting myself Be, because I was taught that was selfish and that I should be conscious of others to the point of self-annihilation

which leads me to ojou-sama, who depending on the work tend to be either extreme of that, their character arc either starting with them haughty, boastful, and unbearably selfish (izumi from princess nine) or quiet and self-sacrificing to a fault (mugi). it's fun to see a shitty facade crack, or an empty facade be filled with love. in general tho the easy reason to point to for my interest is that I grew up with a weeeeeird relationship to social class. my stepdad was a poor opera singer, while my maternal grandparents hosted senators. my sister and I lived between those houses, and at operas and social events I spent a lot of time either only being there because I was, essentially, the jester's kid; or getting "I remember when you were a baby"d by socialites. backstage and onstage. being alternately invisible and very visible in a mannered social context does weird things to yr brain. the ojou-sama is the girl I was but wasn't allowed to be but also she bullied me at school, uh