#<- still not entirely sold on that title but its fun

[nickernacker]

Couple of lads

[bet-on-me-13]

Ellie isn't allowed to travel alone Anymore

So! Ellie was raised in a Lab by a Genuine Bonefied Supervillain. She was raised to be a Villain as well, so her Moral Conpass is a little skewed.

Sure she *mostly* knows what is right and wrong from Danny's quick lesson before her Adventure around the Country, but she still has trouble separating what is moral and what is not from time to time.

So it's really no surprise that the moment she left Amity Park she somehow ended up being branded a Villain.

Look, it's not her fault she didn't know not to attack the flying guy in Blue Spandex when he approached her! One of Danny's biggest warnings shen she left had been Stranger Danger! She did what any 12 year old girl would have done when approached by a strange Older Man!

Its also not her fault that her powers (being Magic based), managed to affect him! She didn't even use her full power! (She maybe should have kicked him in a different place tho...she hopes he wasn't planning on having kids...)

So she did what her instincts told her to do. She took any money he had on him and ran the hell away!

It wasn't until she was 2 cities over when she saw a newspaper titled, "Little Villain Girl Mugs Superman in Broad Daylight!", that she realized she may have screwed up...

After that, she really had no excuse.

She knew that she probably shouldn't have kept Mugging the Heroes who approached her, but she wasn't a Fenton for nothing! Her Family Motto had always been "Commit to the Bit", and she was gonna stick to it!

So when the Fast Red Guy tried to tie her up, she phased off all his clothes and took off with his money (not the mask, she knew enough not to take that off)

And when the Grumpy Bat Guy tried to corner her with some weird papers he pulled out of his Belt, she just distracted him while her clone picked his pockets and made off with the wheels of his Car. That one made her a pretty penny!

The flying Green Guy was fun, his attacks were just throwing Ghost Candy (pure willpower) at her. He did stop doing do after she nicked his fancy talking Ring however, but it was fun while it lasted

Then she came across a Orange Fish Guy, and he actually seemed nice enough. But she was committing to the Bit, so she took the fancy Trident he had and sold it at a nearby Pawn Shop for some extra cash. He would probably be able to find it, that's why she chose a nearby location.

All in All, her Adventure had been really fun! So she decided to visit Amity Park again to tell Danny all about it!

...

Aquaman walked into the meeting room of the Watchtower, a very frustrated look in his eye.

Barry spoke up first, "Oh! I know that look in your eye! She got to you too didn't she!"

Arthur just glared at Barry for a second before walking over to his Chair, sitting down with a thump. "She is certainly a tricky child."

"What did she take this time?" Clark asked.

"..mttrident..." Arthur grumbled out quickly.

"What was that?" Asked Barry with a twinkle in his eye. He heard it, but he wanted everybody else to know.

"She took my trident, Okay!" Arthur shouted out.

"I feel ya man." Responded Hal, "At least with me she threw it back at me when she realized it wasn't making 'candy' anymore. What did she do with yours?"

"She sold it at a Pawn Shop!" Arthus yelled in frustration, "She managed to steal one of the most Powerful Magical Weapons in the world, the Symbol of the entire Atalantean Royal Bloodline, and she sold it and a Pawn Shop!"

"...how much did she get for it?" Asked Hal.

At this, Aquaman just collapsed to the table and groaned.

...

Alternatively she could have just kept all those things, and gradually built up a collection of all the JLA's most treasured possessions.

She has Supermans Wallet, not very important to him but it was her first mugging

She has Batmans Utility Belt (trackers removed) along with his Tires

She took Flashes Costume Ring (his civilian clothes still stuck inside)

She took Green Lanterns ring as well, but unfortunately it managed to escape after a few days. It was feisty.

And her crowning Jewel is the Trident she took from Aquaman.

(She avoided WW, cause she likes her too much to steal anything from her)

[bluwavez]

˗ ˋ 🌊    ARTIFICAL DRIP    ﹕   THE TENTH MINI ALBUM    !

ARTIFICIAL DRIP is the TENTH mini album by the fictional South Korean boy group DeepDive. The album was released on July 21st, 2024. The release caused quite a stir for their revealing concept teasers and the raunchy track names. With a total of five tracks, DeepDive would promote SERVE IT and POPSICLE for a total of seven weeks. They would have three special stages for the b-side "ILY2BBY".

The mini album is completely self-produced, though the boys admit that most of the songs have been collecting dust in the vault for years. "I made Sloppy in 2018," Dowon told the crowd during their premier showcase, "Its original name was 'That's Right' and the lyrics were about something else. Finn wrote the new lyrics." The crowd would then cheer and hoot loudly for the proactive lyrics, causing Finn to shrug innocently.

"I think we made 'ILY2BBY' in, like, 2016? 2017? It was one of our first songs together," Noah explained with a puzzled look. Finn looked equally confused but nodded along. "We polished it a little for this album, but other than that...We didn't change anything. I'm kind of impressed we made that at such a young age, but at the same time, no shit, we made that as teenagers." While the crowd laughed with Noah, Finn chuckled into his microphone.

TITLE TRACK ... TRACK OO1. SERVE IT

TRACK OO2. POPSICLE

TRACK OO3. SLOPPY

TRACK OO4. ILY2BBY

TRACK OO5. KISS IT BETTER

"It shocked me," Kiwoo laughs, "I didn't think any of these songs would see the light of day. I don't really get in the studio anymore, so it was interesting to see those songs I worked on so long ago on the album."

Sirens were a bit miffed when it was revealed these weren't new songs, claiming that this album was not only exploitive but also a cash grab by Mydol. Despite knowing this was a cash grab by Mydol, Sirens would still stream and mass-buy this mini-album, resulting in 18 million albums sold by the end of their promotional period.

YOU CAN GET YOUR ARTIFICAL DRIP PHOTOCARDS HERE!

OO1. First things first, these men were never fully clothed during the entire promotional period. This era is literally defined by how often either Noah or Dowon's boobs were out, like, they were TESTING the limits of how much they could show on music shows. It was a bit ridiculous but also fitting since this album was literally talking about sucking and fucking on the beach like-

OO2. The outfits often caused a stir just because I mean look at them. For some people, it was a bit; some people used it to point out double standards, and some people just enjoyed the beachy slutness of it all. There was a little something for everyone!

OO3. Kiwoo and Jisung stayed fully clothed the whole time unless it was to wear a crop top😁 The classy men duo!

OO4. There were three music videos released in this era. Serve it, Popsicle, and Sloppy. All of which caused a stir. Sirens and netizens alike were just really shocked at how...raunchy these videos were? Except for Popsicle, which was more focused on performance and a Miami Beach concept, but the other videos? Jesus Christ-

OO5. Notably, in the Serve It music video, cameos from all of the Venus members as well as Siyeon and Laila of Lunarix. Myrah, the iconic former Allume member and soloist, was in the opening sequence. They were stacked in the hot girl department! The girls were just being "beach babes" essentially and the boys were pining over them so there wasn't a lot of contact in the Serve It music video until the end when Dowon "gets the girl" and Baebi kisses his cheek.

OO6. NOW, THE SLOPPY MUSIC VIDEO?? WE GET IT! YALL HAVE SEX! GODDAMN!

OO7. But the boys had fun! You could tell they enjoyed themselves on stage and during filming. The behind-the-scenes content seemed a lot more chill than during Tax Write-Off; tensions were high for some reason during that era, probably because a lot was riding on that comeback, but now they're having fun! They enjoy each other again!

OO8. Serve It would sweep every music show the boys got nominated for. Sirens do not play when it comes to voting, guys! They ended the promotional period with 9 wins across various different music shows. However, they did catch heat for going on The Show and absolutely demolishing the lesser-known groups nominated. They got called greedy, but Mydol is greedy, so...Accurate read!

OO9. The physical albums were quite the hot topic because they did not include the boys on the covers but instead girls. Most notably, Baebi is front and center on the "Bay Watch" Version, which confused a lot of Sirens like...She looks great, but what is she doing here? Jisung would explain that the boys actually took the pictures used on the covers and thought they fit the aesthetic of the album better than any of the photos they took of themselves. "I took the picture of Davina on the Surfs Up version. There were pictures of us on surfboards, but the pictures we took of the girls were just so...Beachy! I think the covers are nice. The girls look beautiful in them. Plus, you still get a whole photobook of us shirtless, so-" He'd then put his hand up in a stopping motion, "Calm down. Buy the albums." This would go to highlight how much creative control and input the boys have in the album-making process.

O10. Though it never got a music video, ILY2BBY got a performance video where the boys did the choreography on the beach. Every track got some kind of promotion besides Kiss It Better which Sirens were very vocal about wanting at least a dance practice but Mydol never released one. So, you know what happened? Siren's leaked it! Real EXO-L style, no one knows how the Noah fansite did it but...She did what she had to do! Great way to end the era!

[moonstruckdraws]

Ares

I think this is a good time to say that idk how to draw dudes or buffer muscles on any character lol. Though drawing mutant turtles for over a year did help

That being said, I also don't know armor and tried to make it as fun for me as possible. And to be honest, I do like how this came out. Regardless this is really an excuse to draw him with Aphrodite....

I am without a doubt an Ares fan as of now. Learning about him has been so fun and interesting. I haven't delve into too many myths with any of the gods I plan to draw, as I just wanted their titles, symbols, and what they rule over to decide how to draw them, but still read a bit. (I learned about Aphrodite Areia and what epithets were over the weekend so I am freaking out internally. I already want to redesign/tweak Aphrodite's design lol)

Alright, moving on to design choice, this took forever to make. I had a board for Ares, like the rest, in ideas or concepts or images I thought were cool, but I had no idea what to draw for literally two hours. Just starin' at my screen. And then I spent another two hours just on his frickin helmet lol. So I made the bottom of the helmet turn up in spikes to kinda-very loosely-be like boar tusks. The helmet itself is like a vulture head with pseudo eyes.

I gave him a cape that starts at the vulture's head, and it's specifically a bearded vulture because they look insanely cool and crazy. It blinks when he does and looks around. Is it alive? Is it its own being or a second pair of Ares's eyes for his blind spots? Idk :] The ends are messed up because war, yadda yadda, probably gets set on fire a lot somehow. And is always bloody.

I didn't know what to do with the waist, so to try and incorporate the boar more, I first added big tusks, but they just ended up looking like teeth, so I wrapped them around his waist entirely. I added the pelvic curtain for flare, but now it makes it look like a tongue and I think that's cool, as if his stomach would just open into a gorey mouth or something.

Snakes, like Athena, are also associated with Ares. And because another symbol of his is the flaming torch, I thought it'd be cool if his hair turned to flaming snakes when angered. Not inferno levels of hot, because I didn't want him to be so elemental, just a little fire. In execution, I'm not sold on it, so it'll probably change. I'll probably put some snake design on his boots as they lookin' bland (I don't like drawing shoes).

Last thing is his face! I want the war gods to have their faces blocked out because they wear their helmets so much. I feel like keeping their faces hidden this way was so normal that they unintentionally morphed their faces to be this way. Ares's eyes would be closed the majority of the time his helmet is off, barely opening them at most probably, to keep that sharp look. With Athena, I plan for hers to almost always be open, like an owl constantly watching.

I feel like he feels a bit too human to me, which isn't a bad thing, but not exactly what I want. Maybe he'll get winged ears to be more vulture? And idea I had was for his cape to actually be his wings, so maybe I'll do that?

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 43 - Even Though I Knew The End by C. L. Polk

Oh this was fun. Never would have heard of it if it hadn’t been nominated for a Hugo, and devoured it in the course of a computer-less Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t exactly reaching for the stars, but it knew what it was about and it executed it well; there’s a real virtue to that. Also I adore slightly cheesy but self-serious noir and the early 20th century really is the ideal setting for classical urban fantasy.

The story follows Helen, a private investigator and warlock in 1930s Chicago. Ten years prior to the story, she sold her soul to a demon to resurrect her younger brother from a car crash that would have otherwise killed her entire family – for her trouble, she was cast out from the magical brotherhood training her as a mystic and forced to make a living as a cut-rate diviner and gumshoe in Chicago. The plot kicks off three days before the deal comes due and her soul’s forfeit, and she takes one last consulting job to add a bit more to the nest egg she’ll be leaving for her girlfriend Edith when she’s torn from the mortal coil. And then, of course, she finds out that a) her employer is a demon, b) the case she’s consulting on is someone ritually murdering other poor souls who’ve made deals, days before they come due, and c) if she solves it she’ll get her soul back, along with enough money to make to San Francisco with Edith and start a new life free and clear.

So this is not a book that sets out to surprise the reader. The storytelling is efficient and the foreshadowing is reasonably honest – you can guess just about every twist well ahead of time with even the slightest bit of effort. I’d say the book isn’t trying to break any new ground, but actually it’s the only example I can think off hand of this sort of genre emulation period piece that both has a queer protagonist and doesn’t either elide or edit out the homophobia of the their environment, so there is that. Anyway, ‘genre emulation’ is the right term I think – snappy, tightly written noir plot that doesn’t outlast its welcome (this was absolutely a novella-sized story).

I really don’t know the author or their work well enough to know how intentional it is, but the ending very much felt like a comment on the whole Bury Your Gays/Tragic Lesbian trope. Essentially, Edith gets herself heroically sacrificed saving Helen’s life in the climactic showdown. Then, once the dust has settled and Marlow (her demonic client) has given Helen her soul back she…immediately sells it again to bring her back. Better ten years of Californian bliss with her true love then an eternity in heaven (and besides, that brother she’d saved the first time had just killed an angel, so someone’s going to need to keep him company in hell). The book’s title is in no way subtle or metaphorical, it is a line of the protagonist’s internal monologue.

The story’s universe is a folk-Christian one, and it is absolutely imperative that when reading it you don’t poke at the underlying metaphysics at all. Angels and demons are real and magicians are the distant descendants of Nephilim and some of the Grigori still haunt the earth, and we have it on good authority that God doesn’t actually care about being gay and everyone seems very frightened of the idea of summoning the Archangel Michael to earth, but start asking any followup questions about angels and world events during the Roosevelt Administration and you’re ruin the story for yourself. Just don’t worry about it.

As a final note, I really did love Marlowe – or properly, she’s one of my favorite types of demons in these sorts of stories. Epitome of high class beauty, lives in a palatial penthouse waited upon handed and foot by layers of servants, eats the best food and wears the best clothes and has the best lovers, even a generous employer and creditor as long as you do what she wants and give her what she’s owed. The sort of demon who seems like falling out of heaven was worth it, and one you can imagine actually convincing someone to sell their soul. She’s fun!

[ryotaiku]

I beat Final Fantasy XVI

This game is pretty divided among players. It's entirely action-oriented as opposed to being turn-based, it's the first mainline entry to receive a big ol' M rating (and boy does it deserve one), and FF's place in the industry in general is a pretty hot topic right now. Square Enix has stated FFXVI hasn't met sales expectations (coming from a company who sold off their biggest IPs to try getting into NFTs a year too late), and fans have been dooming pretty hard about the future of the franchise. I even saw one guy say the only FF fans today are people who were teenagers when VII came out.

But speaking as someone who wasn't even conceived when VII came out, FFXVI has been the most fun I've had with a mainline entry since XI. I went in expecting this to be decent at best and it ended up exceeding those expectations quite a bit.

My one complaint, and pretty much everyone's biggest complaint, is a lack of character variety. For pretty much all of the game you only play as one dude, but the companions all do a bunch of cool things that make me wish I could play as them too. Even in the Eikon fights, the big epic Kaiju battles shown in the game's title art & marketing, you only get to control the same Eikon in every single fight.

Even with that missed opportunity, I loved playing XVI and will most likely go back to try the DLC at some point. Stranger of Paradise is probably the best action-oriented FF, but XVI can still stand all on its own.

[lowpolynpixelated]

The Great Divide

What is an Indie game? Is it the literal definition? A game developed and distributed by an independent developer and/or publisher. Is it a connotation of style? Pixel or simplistic graphics, cozy vibes, outlandish mechanics. Is it a representational title? Small development teams, smaller experiences, cheaper games. It is, in a way, all and none of these things. During what I would call the “true bloom” of the Video Game Landscape in the late 90s and early 2000s, such a term was seldom common nomenclature. No in those days it was “enthusiast titles” or “hobbyist” releases. Nothing like the Indie-Directs we see now. So what happened? And why does there seem to be such a clear divide in people’s minds between what’s Indie and what’s Triple A, and why can’t they explain it very well?

Part One: Where did it start?

To say that it started in the early 2000s would be incorrect. Ever since video games began being made people have taken it upon themselves to let their creativity flow through their digital catalyst of choice. The interactive medium was, and still is, unlike anything that came before. Video games are far more than “movies you can play in” they’re art pieces. Statements. An entirely unique way to engage with and experience a work of art, music, writing, and digital wizardry all packaged onto something that fits in the palm of your hand. Video games are magic. And so its no wonder that people wanted to make them. Look at such a famous game like DOOM. Ids smash hit originally had its first level freely distributed via mail-in receipts or at electronic stores, and was sold by Id itself before it took off to a nationwide scale. Developed and distributed by just a few people in an office. Sure there’s always more logistics to it than that, but doesn’t that fit a few of the definitions already? The 80s and 90s were truly the “Wild West” of video games. Because of the market’s fresh growth and upwards trend it took very little to get your game onto a console. Just look at all the titles on the original NES/Famicom systems. Before the advent of the term “Shovelware” it was quite common for such experiences to flood a library. Though this fell out of fashion more in the 90s during the SNES/Genesis era of things in favour of more well tuned and marketable competitive experiences. Such varied scales of polish and concept were doubly so if you look at the Computer Game community from the time. Developing your own games was a passtime. A trick to learn on new fangled devices. So what happened after? During the 3D revolutionary period in the 5th generation of consoles there were more standards. Sure, there were still some more shallow experiences around, but if you wanted to be known in the mainstream world video games you needed to be on a console. And so this is where I think began the true form of what most modern standards would call an “Indie game”.

My favourite examples of such titles include games like “Katamari Damacy” and “Okami”. Both games were developed by either a much smaller studio or in Katamari’s case, just a few select people. They were indeed published by established names, Namco and Capcom respectively, but they have much more in common with the Indie titles of today in that regard as well. In this era it was quite common to find games made by smaller studios, or even sometimes smaller teams within larger studios, given a run on the most popular hardware because the idea was fun. Or for perhaps a more clinical point of view, the idea could be sold. So I ask again, what happened? If you could find such games on consoles for six entire generations of video game consoles, why is there now this “Great Divide” between the Indie and the Triple A? Let’s go back to PC gaming during this time for a bit more information.

In 2003 something very important to this conundrum happened. This event would forever change the way digital distribution of video games would happen, and eventually, in my opinion, lead to where we are now. In 2003 Valve Software launched Steam as a software client meant to manage and deliver updates to their catalog of games. In 2005, only 2 years after its launch and the same year as the launch of the 7th generation of games consoles, they began using the client as a digital storefront to sell and distribute 3rd party software. Before Steam digital distribution of games was spread quite thin due to its relatively new nature. The early 2000s saw internet speeds both fast and stable enough to properly facilitate said distribution, and Valve were hardly the only ones to try and jump on the train as it began to speed up. Storefronts like Stardock stand as earlier examples of attempts to sell games over the web. Steam would be the one to not only take off, but to stick the landing as well.

In the year before Steam’s foray into offering 3rd party software, the 6th generation of consoles had an early adopter of this online storefront model. In 2004 the Xbox Live Arcade as launched on the original XBOX. This allowed owners of the console to purchase additional titles directly to their console, granted they had Xbox Live and the hard drive space to spare. These two factors, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam, would become the catalyst for the explosion of digital purchasing as well as ground zero for when The Great Divide would begin to form. When Xbox Live Arcade was in its prime it was offering games more frequently and successfully than any other console at the time. The Wii’s Wii Shop did a decent job keeping up and was a delightful experience in purchasing old Nintendo Software, and the PlayStation Store was no slouch either. Xbox, however, had an edge. As a part of many of their events such as “Summer of Xbox Live” it would offer alongside many well known console titles, smaller titles made by small and often independent developers. Games such as Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Splosion man, and many others joined the ranks as “Xbox 360 experiences”. Meanwhile on the other side of the coin, Steam was offering these independently made games as a part of its online marketplace. But of course, as we discussed, it was common to find these in the PC space.

So why was Xbox a big deal? Because suddenly, offering these “Indie” games for smaller price tags was wildly successful. It had precedent, certainly. In it’s infancy the Xbox Live Arcade offered games at smaller price tags, anywhere from 4.99-9.99. It wasn’t just a way for smaller games to get recognition on consoles. On the other side of the coin, it was a marketing tactic. “Indies” were hot ticket items all of a sudden. Bolstering your library with indie games meant that the Xbox was the place to go for smaller developers who wanted a life on console, it meant that Xbox was supporting the wider gaming community, it meant that Xbox had video games at bargain prices. I’m sure the executives had dollar signs in their eyes the whole time, and perhaps that is a bit of a cynical way to view it, but it worked out that way. The ramifications of this tactic would continue on and its consequences felt for years to come. Some good, some bad, all very frustrating to categorize.

Part Two: The divide widens

After the massive uptick in the marketing of “indie games” via the pushing of the label in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the gap between what people considered “Triple A” and what was considered “Indie” only got wider. Indie games were small, quaint, not to be judged on the same rubric as those big budget releases that sold consoles. Criticism towards these titles was usually relegated to things like length and price. People were more forgiving to games made by two person teams on aspects like music, gameplay, and graphics. But if you dared to think that your game was worth 30$? Now you’re pushing it. Criticism levied at independently made video games grew more and more harsh in these realms. Why is your 6 hour game 25$? Why does a game with graphics like this cost more than 5$? Pixel art is easier and cheaper, right? This type of criticism was the bread and butter of judging the value of an indie title. If you packed in all the polish and fun of a “triple A” release and sold it for 15$, you were perfect. If it was your first title that you worked on for 5 years straight and DARED to think it was worth 20$, or even 30$, you weren’t experienced enough to ask for that. Every rough edge, every bug, every glitch was now ammunition to say how your game was a “flawed masterpiece that just costs too much” or “A surprisingly fun hidden gem held back by a few things”. The softer “fun little game” approach wore off quickly, and what was left in its place was criticism and judgment just as vicious as those reserved for big name releases.

This was also the time in which some of the more glaring flaws of the “triple A” sphere began to rear their heads higher into the light. The mid 2010s saw the data size of big name releases double or sometimes triple in size demanding more and more storage space for consoles. Some of the time the responsibility was put on the owners of the consoles, with external hard drives being common for the ps4 and Xbox One even more so than they were with the PS3 and Xbox360. A big reason for this was that larger games were steadily getting worse quality wise. Rushed development cycles, overbearing crunch time for developers, and corner cutting development practices encouraged by executives were making AAA games into buggy messes that didn’t go down in price and needed day one patches. Criticism did keep up with these factors, but not in a very popular light. Voices in the gaming landscape who had been advocating for people to pay more attention and demand better from larger companies with resources to do better (a prime example is Stephanie Sterling, who is a longtime video game journalist and extremely vocal about the myriad issues plaguing the industry), and were often ignored in favour of hype and “just wanting to enjoy things”.

All of this amounted to a market with a clear divide. Indie games were small and shouldn’t be judged as the bigger stuff is, but the bigger stuff is also getting worse and deserves more criticism. Indie games were their own genre by this point. Anything that could be called cheaper or less impressive than a standard console release was an indie game. Anything that could be called WORSE than a standard console game was compared to an indie game. They became both a standard that triple A games should outdo, and an insult to be hurled when the game didn’t. The passion, skill, and artistry of hundreds upon hundreds of developers and artists became nothing more than what the Nintendo Switch was using to boast “hundreds of new games every day!”, with most of said games being shovelware and phone apps being hocked onto the console at inflated prices. Still, with how games had come to be categorized, Hollow Knight and Calculator App 412 are worth the same.

Part Three: What does it mean?

So what relation does this have to indie games? Well, the issue with the way criticism was being levied against big name releases was that the criticism effecting independent releases stayed the same. The late 2010s and early 2020s saw some of the worst triple A launches in gaming history, but when a game made by a few people sold for 15$ does all the supposed highest level of the industry can and sometimes more it’s only “surprisingly polished for an indie game”. I ask you, reader, what are we comparing these games to? When most so called “triple A” releases are half finished, rushed to release, or just barely functional, how are games that meet their own goals or even surpass them still a surprise? My argument here is that the terms “triple A” and “indie” no longer apply as much as they used to. In more recent years (I’m writing this in 2024) a middle step has been gaining traction among popular gaming news and review sites, the AA game. “Double A” games, as they’re being called, are supposedly indie games with much higher levels of polish, but not enough to reach the supposed heights of “triple A” games. A more apt description of how the term is being used though, is a way to justify big name releases, floods of half-baked remakes/remasters, and substandard work being pushed by the heads of the industry. Saying a modern big name release is “about as polished as a double A game”, is less inflammatory than saying “it only plays like an indie game” but is no less insulting.

What even IS a double A game? A previous example, Hollow Knight, has often had this new classification applied to it due to its level of polish and apparent higher value than other independently made games. All this label has done is create yet another step for independent games to never achieve unless they get popular enough. There is no inherent value to a video game. The circumstances of its development and skill of its developers do not make it worth more or less than another. So without labels like indie, double A, and triple A, what do we call video games? The answer lies in the question, Video Games. This isn’t to say you can’t judge the quality of a video game. That quality, however, will vary wildly from person to person. Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a classic masterpiece to some, and a boring military shooter to others. The same can be applied to all “classic masterpieces”, and all modern works as well. Horizon Zero Dawn and Hollow Knight exist on different levels of developer and artist intent. They exist in different genres, in different dimensions of art, in different modes of gameplay, but they’re both video games available for the PlayStation 4 and will have their fans and detractors just the same. Hollow Knight was priced as its creators thought they could value it, but price is not quality. Quality in art cannot be discerned as fact. Art does not exist in such cut and dry terms and circumstances. What is inspiring to one might be mundane to another.

There ARE inherent things on which to judge a video game. To exist within the art medium certain factors MUST be up to snuff with what the developer wants the game to be. Core mechanics and gameplay, graphics reading well for what they represent, audio functioning correctly within the expectations set by the game. A game must be playable to be enjoyed, after all. But this is a baseline. You can’t call a calculator app a video game. That just isn’t what its meant to be. It doesn’t meet the base of what a video game is as an interactive experience. What you actually judge and criticize within a video game is the developer’s skill to make it what it says it is. Its price, and more often than not its length, do not determine that. Neither does an arbitrary category created to split the market into “standard and premium” video game experiences. You, the player, do.

Part Four: Thanks and future thoughts

Hello, and thank you for reading my article. The Great Divide is a theory and thought process I’ve held about the gaming landscape as a whole for quite a while, and it feels good to put those thoughts to digital paper. I do have more thoughts on the subject, but am electing to leave this here for now and return to it later in the form of another article, or perhaps an extension or video companion piece to this one. This piece is an opinion, and though it states true facts about video game history I do not offer the whole as fact. These are the ways I feel, and I hope that if you read them you might feel the same. Thank you for reading.

[listieshadows]

Having Fun With Elvis On Stage: A Review, Or A Babble, I'unno—I Didn't Write 1.2k Words To Just Not Share 'Em

Y'know, any review or discussion of Having Fun With Elvis On Stage is basically just trying to answer one simple question: well, did you? And the answer should be a simple "yes" or "no," but, me being me, I have thoughts.

To begin with, knowing why this record even exists does make it a little hard to have fun with Elvis. 'Coz, like, literally the only reason why this thing exists is because Colonel Tom Parker wanted all of the money. I mean, you look at every other Elvis album ever released — they have songs on 'em, right? Written by songwriters? And those songs are owned by publishers, who, naturally, get part of the profit whenever a record's sold. Not to mention, all Elvis song recordings belong to RCA anyway. Obviously, these are all obstacles. Big ones, at one. But, hey, clearly there was a simple way around these roadblocks: just make sure Elvis doesn't sing any songs.

Thus came into existence Having Fun With Elvis On Stage, 37 and a half minutes of between-song banter cut entirely out of context — musical and otherwise.

It's... A bit of an odd experience, honestly. Like, lemme start with this take: some part of me listens to this and hears an unintentional precursor to modern "[x] out of context" videos. I mean, at its core, that is what's going on here. Taking some of the funniest and best moments from something and presenting them rapid-fire, one after another. I've had enough of these recommended to me to know what I'm talking about. In fact, it nearly uses the title format of some of 'em. Switch a few around, add the runtime: "Elvis having fun on stage for 37 minutes..." It works.

Of course, there's a difference between a fan lovingly pulling together some of their favorite moments and clips, and Elvis's manager hacking up concert tapes and assembling them in a random order. Y'know, a fan would have some kind of structure, even just chronological order — Parker here all but slaps the tape fragments in your hand and grunts for money.

Which is a shame that that's the presentation, because, legitimately, Elvis is a funny guy. I've heard at least one of his early Vegas performances, where he's still buzzing from the '68 Comeback Special, and, yeah: he's got the chops. Not to mention the classic "What kind of girl do you like?" exchange. I mean, sure, maybe later Vegas Elvis doesn't have it as much, where he's told the same jokes a billion times across the same show he's done a billion times, but early Vegas Elvis? Yeah, no, I dig it.

But it has to be in the larger context of a show, 'coz, y'know, most of this banter is lead-ins to songs. You don't hafta hear too many Elvis shows to recognize them, and every time you do it's such a tease. Like you're just about to get a bit of "Hound Dog" or a medley or — nope! Dollar bill gets pulled away again. Even worse when there is a bit of music left in (I thought I recognized some of the riffs, but I couldn't put my finger on 'em) and then it just hard cuts to something else. Or, y'know, there's the billion or so times Elvis sings "WEEEEEELL." The only real bit of music you get on this whole album: "WEEEEEELL." If you didn't know better, you'd swear that was the only song he knew: "WEEEEEEELL." Well what? Goodness.

And if it's not that, then it's clips of him kissing women and having them scarves, or it's just... Purely bizarre without anything surrounding it. For instance: "I'm the NBC peacock!" It's, like... I'm sure he's referring to his jumpsuit, but devoid of any visuals, or the rest of the show that clip came from... Even knowing what he was talking about, I still hadda look up at the iPad I had playing this album like, "Wha—? Huh?"

So, that's the verdict, then, eh? I didn't have fun with Elvis on stage? That's the simple answer I shoulda said to begin with?

To borrow a phrase: "Well..."

'Coz, yeah, this thing is a nakedly cynical train wreck of a cash grab. Just another Elvis product to wring a few more bucks out of his fans' pockets, though this time they'd go directly into the Colonel's — no middle men! What a joy! And even Elvis himself absolutely hated this thing, from what I remember hearing. There shouldn't be anything redeeming about his incomprehensible mess.

And yet... I still found some amusement from this thing.

Oh, sure, it's not a lot, and I doubt I'll ever listen to this thing again, but... Look, my qualification for "having fun" isn't a complex one. If I get anything out of this, and if the needle generally doesn't fall too below the negative, then I can't say "No."

There are a few scattered moments here and there I can get some chuckles out of. Elvis saying that you hafta pronounce "Memphis" as "memffif?" That's great! It's something I randomly say to myself all the time. Then there's, like, "BEE-FIFTEH-TOO BAWMA, BWAAAOOOOW." Just random enough that it tickles me. Plus, on the first side you do get, like, a couple uncut minutes where Elvis talks about his early days, and while I generally enjoyed this spiel more when I heard his entire first Vegas show, it still has him describing his acting in movies as: "HUH? WHA?" Also great! Heck, I referenced it unintentionally a few paragaphs up. So, like, it requires some digging, but if you wanna spend the time to find the highlights, you'll probably come out with some.

Although, that said, regardless of my answer, I still can't in good conscience recommend anyone actually listen to this thing. It's still 37 and a half minutes of Elvis babbling to himself like a crazy person and endlessly teasing songs he'll never play. Do you wanna sit through all that unconnected stand-up? Like, I don't think I could even say I'd think the die-hards would get a kick out of this. I mean, if you're this down for The King, you've likely heard every live recording his estate has dumped out, so you've probably heard all of this a million times over. I suppose you could use this as one of those "out of context" videos like I mentioned above, but that's still a crazy amount of work to hafta put in to truly "get" this, y'know? And how are there actually people who've made further volumes of this? Goodness me.

If nothing else, hey, at least this scheme didn't work for the Colonel anyway. After all, he found out that any sound recording made while Elvis was under contract to RCA belonged to them, so it wasn't long before they'd reissued it under their own label. So that's a little something to have fun with.

And I'll say as well: is this the worst rock album ever made? Well, there's not even any rock on it, so categorically, no. But I can't get too mad at it, anyway. After all, I did have some kind of fun with Elvis on stage. And I can't truly condemn anything that accomplishes that much at least.

[svt-nari]

꽃 — the first mini album, by nari.

release date: 2023/05/25

tracklist:

play (ft. RM of BTS) *title | lyrics by nari & rm. composed by woozi, bumzu, nari. arranged by bumzu & nari.

dream of you *special track | lyrics by nari, woozi, joshua. composed by bumzu & woozi. arranged by nari & bumzu.

love me out loud | lyrics by nari. composed by nari & bumzu. arranged by bumzu.

ah puh! | lyrics by nari & woozi. composed by nari. arranged by woozi.

california dream | lyrics by nari & yunjin. composed by nari & yunjin. arranged by nari & yunjin.

flourishing *outro | lyrics by nari. composed by vernon, nari, woozi. arranged by bumzu & woozi.

the mv:

album contents

outbox: 1ea

cd: 1ea

photocards: 2ea of 4ea | random

poster: 1ea

signed polaroid: 1ea of 4ea (limited, first press only) | random

photobook: 1ea (78 pages)

postcard: 1ea of 2ea (only pre-order) | random

weverse benefit: 1ea of 2ea (hologram photocard) | random

album preview:

— she was the one who actually decided the design.

— it has only one version per nari’s own request.

— she knows about carat’s broke asses

— she helped with all the preparations and even signed 5k+ polaroids just for the album.

— each polaroid has a different message even though some might repeat due to her low creativeness.

— nari was really satisfied with the result and she was even more happy when fans praised her hard work!

— also, her most iconic photocards were made in this era. such as ‘nari bread’ and ‘nabi nari’, are her - now - most famous and desired photocards.

the concept photos:

— she had three photoshoots with similar but different concepts for the album.

— the first one had a more renascentist touch, the flower blindfold was actually her idea as she loved the thought of it on the final result.

— ended up being the main concept and being put as the album cover.

— the second concept is the fan’s favorite. people LOVE nari with some nabis on her hair!!!

— she loved this so much that she decided to put it as her weverse profile for fan’s enjoyment.

— she adores the last concept.

— she always wanted to do one of those ‘wet photoshoots’. she had so much fun (even though she freezing half of the time.

— she was the one who choose the clothing for this photoshoot.

album facts:

— the mv was filmed during seventeen’s tour. they filmed it in various different places, it doesn’t have a specific place.

— most of the dresses used by her in the mv were design made just for her.

— the members used to visit the mv sets a lot, nari was super happy that she wasn’t alone during it.

— she wrote all of the songs, she had some people co-writing with her and she felt really proud of the ending result.

— nari was so happy when rm accepted her invite to participate in the song without a second thought. he even wrote his rap part by himself.

— ‘play’ became a hit really quickly due to its addictive and fresh sound, the choreography (even though it’s quite difficult) was well accepted and turned into a challenge on tiktok.

— some songs, like ah puh! and love me out loud, were made a long time ago. she always wanted to release it and found the release of her first mini album the perfect opportunity to do so.

— for the production part nari only wanted woozi and bumzu to do it. she also participated and was really excited to work with the geniuses once again.

— the choreography was created by kim eun-ju and lia kim, nari also participated but it was mostly done by them.

— she was even more happy when her idea of an mv for dream of you got accepted by the company. nari sang the entire song in english, the main reason why it’s a special track.

— her solo album sold over 480k+ album while on the pre-order period. it got to 785k+ sales on the first week.

— one of the fastest selling female soloists, people were really impressed by her fame. she was expected to sell hundreds of thousands but netizens were still surprised by the amount.

all rights reserved © svt-nari, 2023

[tavyliasin]

Okay I need to be greedy because I can't risk no one asking for the others and I need to know😆😆😆😆

Volo/Abdirak

Lucretius x Ketheric

Emperor x Raphael

Please 🙏

My my, aren't we daring today~ Of course I'll give you a bit of each! I'll put all of them below the cut though so I can include samples, and this is the warning for NSFW below the cut~

Volo x Abdirak

Alright so technically I already did the pairing in the Volo series but I really want to do a bit more with them both, and play on that connection from the Goblin camp.

All I have on it so far is one line I did for another WIP game a while ago...

The long and drawn out screams of the prisoner in the next room were little comfort to the caged wizard – neither was the sound of heavy boots treading far too lightly towards his own cell.

So we're going for some Goblin Camp then maybe meeting again along the road? I'm not fully sold on the direction yet aside from "kinky fun".

Lucretius x Ketheric

Another one I only have a little done from an older WIP game but it's still on my list! Toying with how Ketheric is sort of undead but not undead, and Lucretius is very much accustomed to dealing with the fully dead/undead. So there's a bit of that and a bit of maybe pushing some stronger kink for "you can't kill me in a way that means anything" versus "oh but wouldn't it be fun if we try?"

It was generally considered bad for business for a necromancer to balk or even hesitate when faced with a subject, but similarly most necromancers didn’t expect their quarry to be quite so immune to the dying part.  Lucretius frowned at the groaning mass before her, turning her ire from one skeletal servant to another as her hands found a place on her hips. “Well? What am I supposed to do with this?”  The man in the wheelbarrow groaned, the sound not unlike a death rattle yet still his carcass remained stubbornly animated – it was going to be a long day.

OK last but not least, the further along WIP from a prompt far too long ago, my friend if you're reading this I'm so so sorry I will be tagging you the moment it is ready I promise...

Emperor x Raphael

A prequel, set around the time Emperor was running the Knights of the Shield beneath Baldur's Gate. Raphael is naturally always looking for useful pawns to add to his board, and someone with his fingers (and tentacles) in so many pies is too tempting to pass up.

Looking at heavy BDSM and some switching, testing each other's limits and the differences between them both physically and idealogically. Also, it's high key amusing to think of Raphael's disdain towards a player character sleeping with the Emperor as being based on a jealous ex vibe~

I have a fair bit more than this written so I'll just give the opening paragraphs for now...

“So, tell me,” the nobleman smiled, an expression not unlike a cat with its claws in the tail of its prey, “how is it that an illithid is sat at the head of the table, playing at being a grand protector – a Knight, to use your own title.”   A chill spread through his body – this was no human sat with a glass of wine in his hand, no ordinary man could see through the powerful illusion charms… The self proclaimed Knight felt his concentration on the spell that concealed his nature slipping – not that there was much point in attempting to maintain the ruse, now that it was clear the truth had already been revealed. He allowed the glamour to dissipate, the hood and mask of his cloak finally falling away to expose lilac skin and bright pink eyes set deep beneath his brow, tentacles at least free to move comfortably as the mindflayer switched to psychic communication instead. “You are no ordinary noble.”  “Very astute, Knight,” the man chose to use the claimed title in place of a name now, calm smile remaining in place as he took a sip of the wine. “You may call me Raphael, as for what I can be…that is entirely up to you.”  “Devil,” Knight surmised, deciding the name was as good as any. He was hardly Balduran any more, anyway. The numerous other pseudonyms of his disguises seemed equally pointless in the face of the smiling fiend. “Then you offer a bargain? You will find me a disappointing target, there is nothing I am willing to sell whatever remains of my soul for.”  “A soul is an interesting thing,” the devil smiled, a dark coin appearing between his fingers, lazy hand motions rolling in around the grip between knuckles. “But I find that an ally can have far more value to me than a mere soul.”   “Alliances can be valuable, or dangerous,” he carefully poured a measured sip of wine into his maw, savouring the vintage. It reminded him of a particularly long journey, many centuries past, with the wind in his hair… No wind here, nor hair either. “So which will you be? Valuable, or dangerous?”

I hope that satisfied your curiosity for now!

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

OOR 1997 - Nr 21 - Rammstein interview

Rammstein

They are German, they play a mechanical-like form of metal and seem to be infatuated with fire, blood and different forms of pleasure. It could hardly be more wrong, but this interview with the usually quite reserved singer Till Lindemann shows that there is more going on than sensationalism.

I don't understand how people can get so upset about us

by Hans van den Heuvel, photo Niels van Ieperen. With thanks to Monique Aerts.

They are German, they play a mechanical-like form of metal and are infatuated with fire, blood and deviant forms of the experience of pleasure. You simply can't be more wrong than Rammstein.

But what is even more important: the former East Germans are certainly not ashamed of this. Under the motto: there are so many prejudices about Germans that even an entire human life is not long enough to get rid of them all, they go one step further. Rammstein sings about SM, necrophilia, incest, sex between brothers and sisters, sex with animals. And all in the imperative mood: Küss Mich, Bück Dich, Bestrafe Mich, just to pick three stylistic flourishes from titles from the recently released CD Sehnsucht. The face is completely equal. Buck Dich. I don't care about your face. Bend down! You would expect that the entire women's movement would immediately rush to the barricades, but the opposite is the case. Or could that be because the band is mainly attributed a homoerotic appearance? For example, the Dutch magazine Blvd featured the band in an article about glamor cousins, which would also include Freddie Mercury, Divine, Village People, Liberace and Adam Ant. Rammstein's mention was accompanied by the following text: 'What should you do with this combo from East Berlin? Are they dangerous? Are they scary? Are they subversive? They have shock value, that's for sure. It will all be Rammstein and that is actually the only correct attitude. It could be sadomasochism, it could be degenerate, it could be a temporary phenomenon. In any case, Rammstein is hot as hell and their music is irresistibly good. That's what it's about. Pop is entertainment. People with need for a message should just go to the toilet. Or to Albert Hein 1).

Just like with Rockbitch, we are confronted with a strange phenomenon at Rammstein: people come up with all kinds of excuses to not have to like the bnad, but after some insistence they admit to doing so anyway!

At the basis of all this fuss is an incredibly infectious thump, which balances perfectly on the razor's edge between metal and electronic dance music. The terrain that acts such as Frontline Assembly, The Prodigy, Moby and The Chemical Brothers are looking for from the other side. Rammstein succeeds where a similarly German band like Krupps failed. And manages to break records in that Heimat. For example, their second CD, Sehnsucht, entered the album charts at Number One, after the record had remained on the shelf for more than half a year because its predecessor was still being sold. The band adapted to the situation very quickly. Interviews may not last longer than twenty minutes, take place with a random band member (because everyone is equally important; that is why there are six different versions of the CD Sehnsucht and the T-shirts based on it, each with a different band member on the front ), must be conducted in German and photography is not allowed.

With those rules in mind, we start a six-hour car journey to Erfurt, the first stop in the former East Germany and home of speed skater Gunda Niemann 2). Faded posters urge you to attend the Giants of Rock tour, featuring Meat Loaf and The Scorpions. There is no poster anywhere for tonight's concert: Rammstein has completely sold out the Thüringerhalle. The people come for the fireworks and they get fireworks. Rammstein brings an arsenal of explosives that even Dio and Venom could have smelled in the heyday of hard rock. It is so over the top that it becomes fun again and the presentation of the singer Till Lindemann, who came straight from the mocking school (according to some, the sex symbol of the nineties) has something so charmingly clumsy that we - based on Rammstein's music - not entirely illogical - The thought that this would be the man who will pave the way to the Fourth Reich should immediately be banished from our minds. The chance of that happening is just as small as the CD winning the elections under Janmaat. Lindemann has actually seen it up close. something like Claw Boys Claw frontman Peter Te Bos and he is almost as sympathetic. Although the vocalist with the ultimate beard in his throat almost never does interviews, in this case he even appears to be willing to answer - while chain-smoking, that is. to the question whether Rammstein consciously wanted to be as politically incorrect as possible, or whether this was just a bonus.

"I used to play drums in a punk band, which only consisted of bass and drums. We worked with guest guitarists, mostly Paul and Richard. We did a short tour, where I switched instruments with the bass player in the encore and put on a low voice. It was so popular that Richard insisted on setting up a project in which I would sing. Gradually other band members were added. But it was only when I moved from Schwerin to Berlin that the band took serious shape."

Your group takes its name from the Ramstein air base, where a plane crashed about ten years ago. The force of the explosion that followed caught up with fleeing victims and scorched them in front of the cameras. Not only did you name your band after that airport, but you sing the song Rammstein dressed in a burning coat. That seems quite harsh to the surviving relatives.

"We saw those images on television. This hellish accident hit us with such intensity that we wanted to create a musical memorial for it. At the time we didn't have a name for the band and Rammstein was one of the first songs we finished. We thought it would be good to continue that... I have never heard a single spectator complain about our name, only journalists look for something behind it. We simply describe what we have seen: crying mothers and dying children. Even the birds stopped singing. singing at the sight of this total inferno. You would expect time to stand still, for the earth to darken. But the strange thing was: the sun simply shone through. That's such a strange contract, with every catastrophe that strikes humanity: life just goes on..."

Otherwise you'll rub salt into the wounds with your burning coat!

"Some people feel bad because they think we are making things ridiculous. But I see it as a form of identification. And a show element. A person is burning is quite easy to sing, but I try to take it a step further." to continue by wearing a burning coat. And I regularly burned myself..."

For someone who sings songs about SM, that must be a real pleasure.

"Punished Mich has nothing to do with SM. Although I am an atheist - the whole band is by the way - I have the feeling that I am constantly being punished for something. When one believes in a higher power, it is logical that all the good that comes to you falls is attributed to that higher power: Der Herr Gott nimmt, der Herr Gott gibt. That is a saying from the Bible. God has rewarded me, assigned something good. But He only gives to the people He loves. I feel only punished. And it's not just me who is screwed, a large part of the human race is punished. Why else is there so much misery and injustice in the world?"

Why do you feel punished?

"It would take us too far to go too deeply into this. It is a whole series of little things that keep coming back. All my love relationships, for example, end in disappointments and sadness. Just like the four seasons, the misery keeps coming back. Why is it possible Don't just spend more than three months in summer? You can go on vacation to enjoy summer longer, but if life itself doesn't offer you that summer time, there is no escape. And I'm not just talking about myself, but also about the situation in which others find themselves. For example, our song Tier is about incest. Sex between father and daughter is something that is only normal among animals. Was power a man among two men and animals not unterscheiden kann, I ask myself in the start from scratch. There are so many things going on. If you want to, you are happy. You are your own self. I have a twelve-year-old daughter that I am trying to raise. And I do my best to understand how someone can make it for themselves. can justify making love to his own child. I simply can't imagine anyone lying down against that in excitement. In the first verse I describe the situation, with the only conclusion being that only animals can do something like that. Because this is in no way distinguished from animal behavior. In the second verse I wonder: was power a Frau, who between their Tier and Mann, could not be separated? where the focus is on the child who has grown up to be a woman, but has to go through life with that nightmare from her youth. She writes a letter to her own youth, to herself. When her father slept with her. She actually becomes an animal too. The fact is that she has been more or less destroyed. It is a cycle: what you experience in your youth, you carry with you throughout your life."

"When I have written a text, there is a lot of discussion about whether it is acceptable. With the other musicians, the producer, the record company, with some friends. You look for confirmation: can you make this or not? Is it possible? was it misunderstood? Or can you put it out like this? We have six people in the band. So you understand that quite a bit of discussion takes place before anything comes out. But the entire band fully supports everything that has been said. of us has been published. The limitation lies in the German music legislation. Things like love with animals and incest are on the index, so you know in advance that you don't have to put energy into certain lyrics, for the simple reason that they be banned and a beep will appear on your record. That happened with the first pressing of our first CD. But the complaint was declared unfounded, after which the censored CD was withdrawn from the market and became a collector's item again for collectors. item has become. Because of those beeps... However, when we started working on our second record, that process still hung like a shadow over our heads. Our record company then took a square stance and said: if we don't get the first CD through the index, we can completely shake things up with Tier. But nothing happened. And we are happy that we stuck to our guns."

Is your goal to shock? Or is that just a nice bonus?

"I want to put myself in the mindset of certain people: how a certain situation that has gone off track comes about. I want to enter their brain room: a space with many colorful and black and white corners. Sometimes a bit dark, sometimes light. I try to hide all those corners from the darkness with a flashlight. Even the cobweb-covered corners that you normally wouldn't go near, the chaotic piles of rubbish you find there! I'm just trying to describe, without attacking. I understand that people can be shocked by this. I even read in a newspaper five minutes ago that we would incite people to violence. I read that often. But the reaction that has affected me personally the most is a letter from a girl who was raped when she was nine or ten years old. She wrote that she could identify with the song Weises Fleisch - which was briefly on the index - because I talked about rape, while she herself did not could. She had grown up thinking that she had to keep that passage from her childhood a secret, not to tell anyone. My love made her understand that it was something to talk about. She was very grateful that I wrote the song... By the way, I don't understand how people can get so upset about us sometimes. I have seen what happens to children and prostitutes in Indonesia. And if you knew what goes on behind the curtains in this city at night, my lyrics would be very innocent. Those small studios and basement stairs of the red light district, those small SM shops with cages and whips. How sick is humanity? And how trivial are the themes I address in my lyrics, or the things I do on stage?!"

Yet you are obsessed with the things that happen in those small boxes, because that is what you write your lyrics about.

"That has more to do with the fact that all those other topics are so annoying. Everything has already been said before! What I hear of German music doesn't grab me by the balls. It's about love, tralala?"

Love in Rammstein goes from: Bück dich, dein gesicht ist mir equal?

"That comes from the film Tokyo Dekadenz, about an incredibly rich man from Tokyo who is married to three or four women. But he cannot find satisfaction. He invents all kinds of things, buys the most expensive things and pays a lot of money for sexual excitement, but he is not happy. He works twelve to fourteen hours a day, his whole life revolves around his work. With a lot of money he tries to buy the love he lacks. Despite all his money, he does not succeed, which makes him even more unhappy to feel."

Do you think people who see a Rammstein performance will experience the song the same way?

"Most people want to see a good show. If some of the lyrics stick, that's a bonus. But in our latest single Du Hasst I put myself in the position of the registrar and sing: Will you remain faithful to this person, until death do you part? the entire audience shouts at the top of their lungs: No! I don't even have to sing it anymore, the audience will do that. I find the vow you take when you get married anyway questionable. You can still Don't fixate on one and the same person all your life?! Marriage is not a tattoo!"

Attention dear reader. You might miss it after the serious tone of the preceding, but that last comment was a joke!

Rammstein's music definitely contains a humorous element.

German humor can certainly be funny, but it is usually based on power. And you have to be able to handle that. While some Dutch people think that nothing good has come out of Germany since Hitler 3), Germans are often sensitive when we make jokes about the Second World War (the most obvious comment being that we want our bicycle back). But there were also many casualties on the German side. The uncle of one of Rammstein's musicians, for example. It fell from a watchtower in the concentration camp.

"Even though we sound pushy and serious, we try to put as much humor into our show as possible, so that it all becomes a bit more light-hearted. But we are not a cheerful band. If it is not in your nature, you should not try to add it artificially. Maybe one day it will work out. With Engel we have already taken a different path. The female voice we have added gives the song a pleasant contract."

Was Heino perhaps an influence as far as your own singing is concerned?

"No, much more the Sisters of Mercy. That deep voice. I didn't want to imitate that, but there is a bit of exaggeration in it. I have a low voice, I can't help it. What strikes me is : when you sing in English, no one cares what you are talking about. Just listen carefully, what kind of dark things bands like Marilyn Manson, Type O Negative, Ministry or Megadeth sing about! Just because we are German, they try open a drawer."

There is also something frighteningly militant about your music and the German language.

"It's not that we want to be a German band, we just are! I know that many Germans are ashamed of their origins. Because of the warlike character of our forefathers, I understand that tendency, but I'm German. That's the problem with all those German bands. Whether they make crossover, punk or whatever, everything comes from somewhere else, has no roots. In the sixties the German Schlager still existed, there was a clear German music landscape But at some point things changed, they started fixating on America or England. They tried to copy things and bring them into the country. I don't know what exactly it is, but for me Kraftwerk was the first real German band. An example for many. After The Scorpions, the only German band that represents something worldwide and certainly the only band that is known all over the world with the German language. Because they are unique. Kraftwerk was not a copy, they were themselves! But links to the Ȕbermensch idea were also made at Kraftwerk. However, we are not interested in politics at all! We are more likely to stand next to reality. It is an exaggeration to say that we are only artists, but we stand for our music and not for messages. We come from the former GDR, maybe it has something to do with that. We have not always had it easy, but we can say from the bottom of our hearts that socialism and everything the GDR stood for also had its good sides: harmony and a sense of solidarity. Strongly focused on the collective and the community. You mainly heard in the news that things were so bad in the GDR, but it wasn't that bad. There were things that were not good, but you could live quite normally without the consumer hunt that people have now and which does not make people any happier. It was about other things. Life was arranged, there was work for everyone, wages were low, food cheap. There was free childcare, all social conditions were well taken care of. Commercial things were lacking. A good TV cost five to six months' wages, and you had to wait at least ten years for a car. Commercial things - consumer goods they called them here - came in second place. The fact that man was not satisfied with that, because he wanted everything, is somewhat lost sight of. People wanted a VW Golf, or a hi-fi system. And they wanted to be able to travel. That's why the wall had to be removed. But an idealistic wall still exists. If we need computer parts or something, we still have to go to West Berlin. There are still no such specialty stores in the ancient East. Although there are no boundaries anymore, there is still a mental barrier. Which hopefully will no longer bother our children, but which will continue to exist throughout our lives. I am also convinced that many people would like to have the wall back, to return to the old situation. There used to be unity, but now there is a lot of loneliness. Currently there are unemployed, homeless, beggars, skinheads and right-wing radicals. They didn't exist in the ancient East. They were immediately put under lock and key. Everything was arranged down to the last detail. Capitalism has come over us like a tidal wave. And many people drowned.”

Would you like the wall back?

"Besides the bassist, I am the only one who worked 4). The other band members could earn their money by making music. When you made music seriously, you were recognized as an artist and you had relatively much freedom. If you had to work you were given the less pleasant sides of socialism: subordination, one was more equal than the other, you know. So I didn't really feel the need to rebuild the wall. And now that our music is going so well Not at all. But for a while I did have doubts."

--

1) Bit hard to translate, dutch word 'boodschap' means 'message in music' (as in a meaning to the music, and not just some fun), need to go to the toilet (nr 2) or an errand at a grocery story like dutch supermarketchain Albert Hein.

2) Speedskating is one of the most popular sports in the Netherlands, and Gunda Niemann at the time was a very succesful skater from Germany, the name probably more familiar to a dutch reader than many others mentioned

3) I was surprised to read a phrase like that, i'm sure a journalist wouldn't even think of writing that down nowadays but 25 years ago, apparently this was okay.

4) from other interviews we know the others had sidejobs too

--

List of other Rammstein OOR interviews

[artemisandhersilverbow]

If there are no fans of Taylor's lyric vids it's because I'm dead. They add so much richness to already elite lyrics. But I was immediately suspicious during The Manuscript video.

Because my understanding of what a manuscript is, is the following:

I had assumed, like many prior to the album drop, this was meant to make us think of books. These days in publishing a manuscript will be typed, but it's not the book in its final form.

In the Tortured Poet's library popups in a couple cities, there were a lot of books. Blank ones, damaged ones, ones with the names of TTPD song titles, and notably a handwritten "Story of Us." That hand written Story of Us then showed up in the Fortnight MV. Interesting...

Of course, any long time fan knows the role Taylor's diaries play in her music making as well. Her music has always sounded confessional and it's been one component of her musical super power. During Lover promo, excerpts from her diaries were sold alongside the album. She's underscored their importance many times.

So imagine my surprise when The Manuscript video... doesn't show a manuscript...

That is a screenplay.

And I click back to the first seconds of the video... looking at those underlined letters and asked myself... is it The Man U Script? *if i was a maaaAAn*

The way she has these lyrics written out in screenplay form... we're watching a scene narrating the "She" character reading something unpublished, perhaps handwritten, perhaps a diary, maybe lyrics. I assume the "HE" which is in voiceover is what she's reading and her lines are spoken.

Anyway, I wont break down the full scene because I haven't watched it in this new light yet. But this tension between the song name at first glance - something unpublished or handwritten. Messy, unfinished, not meant for the public, perhaps even at its most authentic... vs. characters in roles. Men that are scripted... well that's adding a whole knew dimension to it.

I really appreciate how before I watched this, the song feels like it's told in vignettes and time moves dramatically. But I didn't appreciate the play on POV initially (and there's a ton of it in this - very good - album)

Also noteworthy that, yes, there seems to be reference to the ATW short film, which makes even more sense to me now.

But anyway, the narrative about this album has once again become about the men. Which isn't new, but always disappointing. Genuinely, I got something really different out of this album by not focusing on solving those romance riddles with my own confirmation bias. The other story, the one about a singular artist, percolating beneath the surface is far more interesting to me.

It wouldn't be the first time she's called out the people who consume her work in this album and, frankly, it's one of my favorite things about it. It's cutting and it's earned. It's also heartbreaking. But for a song that confused me, is the bonus on all the regular editions of TTPD, I think it would be a lot more satisfying if this is the message she's leaving us with. That once I publish my work, my stories, in it's final constructed/edited form, I've moved from the place I was when I experienced them. And then when its published the truths you seek to dig out from my words don't belong to me - it belongs to you. Just a thought.

Edit:

I think there are a lot of ways to read this. In conversation with the fans/outsiders is the main one, which I touch on before.

But for a more literal reading using some clues from the video, I know how Taylor can’t resist utilizing a number when it’s available for a little clue. Now I think reading each page number by era… is actually a fun (still devastating) way to do that. As you’ll imagine 3 and 4 are where those lines show up.

But we end on 7 where she’s accepting she doesn’t own those albums anymore, but all that she’s left with is the manuscript - which I would guess is her music (published and unpublished) and diaries.

Lover era + promo diary era was her first entirely owned era, but as the song says “looking back” or re-recording/vault tracks/doing it on your terms is the only way to move forward.

Also how about the hard to catch glitch over the words “the actors”?

[bigskydreaming]

Bit of a vent post, bit of a housekeeping post, bit of a 'so that's what's been happening in Kalen-land' post:

So I have officially done everything that can be done to prepare for our relocation to a different site while they do construction on this one for the next year, which should be....any day now. Since it was originally supposed to happen on October 2nd, lol. Oh, bureaucracy.

If I wrote a memoir of the last two years specifically, 'Oh, Bureaucracy' would be the title, actually. So obviously its no secret that Moukie & I have been struggling for a long time, even after my surgery back in December 2021. But pretty much all of that has to do with our struggles to hack through bureaucracy to secure some actual stability and longterm living situation, since....oh, January 2022. We've finally secured a five year lease to stay in this place (with the exception of the next year, at a different site during construction, as I mentioned), but like....we only JUST got that agreement officially in writing, signed & notarized & all that...last week.

After being told it was basically a done deal but they couldn't finalize anything or put anything in writing until the building sold and the property changed hands and one city service took over oversight of this particular property from another one....pretty much every month since November of last year. They changed dates and timelines on us so many times it was like every three week we'd have a completely new timeline we were looking at for when we could expect to have everything finalized or for the relocation to happen, etc. Most recently, we were told with complete certainty that everyone HAD to be out October 2nd, that construction would be starting immediately after that, nobody would be allowed to stay in the building.

October 31st, and we're still here, lol.

So that's been a fun non-stop rollercoaster ride of stress, lol. The problem, of course, is that before my surgery (12/2021), I'd quite literally been homeless for at least the five years prior to that. Fortunately I never quite made it to the point of having to sleep outside, though there were plenty of times it got close, and spent most of that time living out of cheap motels & extended stay housing while working towards getting enough money together for my surgery, but as far as any landlord or potential renter is concerned, I was for all intents & purposes homeless during that time, and that's....not great when trying to secure housing in the middle of a pandemic right after basically starting your life over from scratch after the surgery to fix the problem that basically derailed your entire life, lol. Not to mention my credit score was practically nonexistent, all my credit cards were maxed out to pay for the surgery & insurance, my driver's license had been expired for years due to not being even able to drive while I had my issues w/my jaw & everything related to that, and getting it back was easier said than done because I'd had like, two unpaid parking tickets at the time of my medical issues beginning & they kinda completely dropped out of sight, out of mind, only to multiply w/fees that were fucking ridiculous to contemplate & going down to the DMV or traffic court to try and argue them down, while my medical issues were still ongoing, was a nonstarter due to how little travel I was capable of in that state....

LOL. Not a great starting point when rebooting for Kalen 2.0 - and of course I'm not going to get into why we had to use my ID & everything for renting & all that, instead of Moukie's, just trust that there were Reasons.

And of course there are programs to help people out with these kinds of circumstances, which is basically what we've been doing since January 2022....navigating that labyrinth of red tape, because actually ACCESSING those programs, proving eligibility, meeting all requirements, keeping consistent with all requirements throughout the months of waiting on a verdict from higher-ups your file's been passed up the chain to....MUCH easier said than done. The hoops are just. The stuff of legends. Especially when you're still having trouble consistently staying stocked on the meds you need to be productive & functional, or even just keeping your phone active. Oof. All of that was very Not Fun.

Which segues into a bit of that venting I was talking about, because over & over the past couple years we've had well-meaning (and not so well-meaning & largely just obnoxious) people asking us in response to our donation posts like, well why don't we just move to a cheaper city? LOL. I just. I wish people would stop to think that maybe if there's such an obvious solution that someone hasn't availed themselves to yet, there's probably a REASON for that.

We actually had several. For starters, there's the fact that I still have stuff related to my jaw to deal with....I still have no teeth, lol, and haven't really been able to even START getting the bone grafts I need to be able to get implants at some point, so I'm not stuck with dentures for the next fifty years....and it took me literal years to find dentists familiar with my situation, willing to work with me on payment plans & longterm strategizing, etc.....not that easy to just start over with all of that in another, smaller city. Not to mention if I do have any problems with my prosthetic, LA's one of the only places that has ANY surgeons that deal with this specific kind of jaw replacement surgery, so I'd always have to come back here for any further medical related stuff.

But then there's additionally the fact that all those programs meant to help people like us who are literally trying to restart their lives after medical issues, homelessness, etc.....they're pretty much all specific to their own city. They're all contingent on each individual city's resources, services, populations and a million other details.....so moving to a different city basically means having to start all over again with applying to THAT city's housing aid programs & navigating THAT city's bureaucracy from its beginning & forfeiting however much time or progress you've put in already in the city you're currently in. And frankly, most cities don't HAVE as good of aid programs as LA does....its just...it takes fucking forever to actually make full USE of such programs, as evident from the fact that after almost two years, we're only FINALLY to the point where one of those programs has been able to actionably help us secure longterm housing.

(And also there's the fact that when we don't even have enough money for groceries, how cheap do people thinking picking up and moving to another city actually IS? Like. You need starter money to even GET there & get on your feet or you wind up in an even worse situation than we were in).

But honestly, we didn't have it so bad, we have been able to stay housed & working various odd jobs for the past two years....its just been long, and stressful, never actually knowing when or even IF we'd get to the point where we stopped worrying about being kicked out at any given moment, and there were times that looking for housing or trying to deal with bureaucratic red tape was the equivalent of a full time job, in terms of hours required.

All of which is to say....be aware when assuming the worst of various donation posts & their posters, that except in the case of actual scammers, no matter what you may think of how a particular donation request was worded or described their situation, its almost always VASTLY more complicated than can be summed up in a couple of easy to read paragraphs that might actually get people to help. I promise you, if super obvious solutions seem evident to you, they've occurred to the people living with that situation 24/7, and there's a reason that they haven't tried that solution or maybe they even did & for whatever reason it didn't actually work out.

And that said, all of this is also to say just....thank you again for everyone who's helped us out over the years. I know it often seems unending or like we're never getting our acts together, lol, but trust me, it feels that way to us too, times a million, and like....we're working on it. Its just. Much easier said than done. For every hurdle cleared, there's usually another one waiting to pop up like a fucking whack-a-mole game from Hell. Since January 2022 we've been consistently working towards a longterm, stable housing situation and this is it, this is what we were working towards.....we've been fully approved for relocation to the other site for the next year & then returning to this one after construction/renovation, w/a lease agreement for the next five years.....and that's the dream, honestly.

Genuine stability, not having to worry about whether we'll have to move at any given moment, actual housing security....allowing us to FINALLY focus on building our lives back up, instead of constantly grinding just to keep a roof over our head & make sure nobody's about to kick us out....and having the room to breathe & for the first time in literal years (in my case, almost seven at this point) actually prioritize something OTHER than figuring out where we stand on paperwork, filing, tracking down various liaisons to bug them yet again about an accurate timeline for when we'd be notified of whether or not we'd been approved for this program or that one, when we'd actually be relocating, when we had to make x payment by to ensure we didn't lose our qualified status, etc.

And I, for one, definitely can not WAIT to give more of a shit about the absolute stupidest shit imaginable instead of like....warily checking the hall to see if new eviction notices popped up overnight. LMAO.

Anyway. Like I said, we finally have our agreement in writing, we know where we're relocating to, and as soon as that actually happens - which they keep insisting should be any day now, sigh - we'll finally be in a much better place. As part of the relocation program we landed in, our rent at the other site is covered during the year this site is under construction, so already just from that alone we'll be much better off financially.

Moukie's been sending around a donation post this month, and we'll probably keep it circulating up until the day the movers arrive and they finally pull the trigger on us leaving this site, because for the last three months they've been insisting that October 2nd was absolutely going to be our last day here, and we planned around that timetable....meaning that since October 2nd came and went with us still here, our only jobs at the moment are whatever freelance ones we can scrounge up, since the new place is far enough away a commute to & from a workplace around HERE wouldn't be viable, so I can't even go look for a new one to replace the last one until we're actually in the area we'll be spending next year in, lol. So in the meanwhile we've basically been surviving off donations since freelance work is painfully dry at the moment, and as it is, the company Moukie does editing work for still hasn't paid them for their last job yet, which was back in September, I believe? Its ridiculous, but it is what it is.

So yeah, we'll keep that post circulating a bit longer til we're out of here for good, basically just for food money until we're settled in the new place & can grab a new 9-5 and I would say something about that damn patreon I'm always claiming I'll make except I am a Proven Liar Not To Be Trusted On That Subject at this point, but hey, once we're in the new place, maybe that will finally change.

That's basically everything I set out to ramble about, I think, so....I'm done. Wait. Lemme check - yeah, no, that's it, I'm good. I've said it before but it'll never stop being true: we would not have survived if it weren't for the kindness of strangers & the help of mutuals & followers & we really are so much more appreciative of it than I can ever adequately express. I know that can come across as lip service, but genuinely, people here have done more for us and to help us and to see us succeed than our families ever did and we've been reduced to ugly-crying more than once as a result. Its gotten bad, guys. Like. When I go all out, it's not a pretty sight. I've got that pale Irish skin that gets all splotchy when I'm emotional, my nose gets all stopped up, I make scrunchy faces like a baby that KNOWS its not as pretty as its parents keep trying to pretend and is out to prove it....its a whole mess.

And on that note - and imagery - I'm officially done here. Thanks for reading!

[rallamajoop]

Resident Evil 5, and why ‘Man who punched a boulder that one time’ is not a personality

Since I’ve already talked about Resis 2, 3, and 4, it’s probably about time to tackle RE5, which may be relevant to the greater state of the franchise for two reasons. For one, after the success of the RE4 remake, RE5 may well be next up in that queue. And considering the franchise’s recent trajectory, with all that RE8, too, owes to the original RE4, it’s worth asking whether something much like RE5 (for better or worse) may well be what we have to look forward to in RE9.

RE5 certainly sold well – to this day, it remains one of the best-selling titles in the franchise. Cynically though, I can’t help but wonder how much of that was simply the franchise coasting off the reputation of RE4 – a game is still cited as one of those titles-that-redefined-the-genre, whereas RE5 doesn’t have much legacy beyond being ‘the racist one’, or That Time Chris Redfield Punched a Boulder.

To give credit where it’s due, by reputation RE5 was a lot of fun to play with a partner (as it was intended), though it may be more notorious for how frustrating it was to play without one, depending on the infamously-awful partner AI as a stand in. Running away from your own AI partner as they try to waste the good healing items on you when you've only got a scratch is apparently a regular part of the single-player experience. I’m stuck saying ‘by reputation’ here because I haven’t actually played RE5 myself, and thus everything below should probably be taken with a pretty big grain of salt.

What I can tell you is that, experienced purely via let’s-plays and cutscene compilations, this is easily the most boring numbered entry in the whole RE franchise.

The biggest single problem here is its protagonist, Chris Redfield, who’s be reimagined for the new console generation as a huge, muscular slab of a man, and with all the personality of a sheet of cardboard, not-much-enhanced by such exciting dialogue as, "There's one thing I do know. I have a job to do, and I'm going to see it through."

This is not a problem unique to Chris: Jill, in her few actual scenes, fares no better. ‘Dedicated para-military professional’, ‘designated good guy’ and ‘wants to save the world from bioweapons’ are perfectly good character traits. They should not be someone’s entire personality. This is a game that does that classic Winter Soldier trope where Jill comes back from the dead brainwashed by the villains, and somehow manages to make it boring. That shouldn’t be possible, but with Chris and Jill, RE5 has pulled it off.

Not all the heroes are as bland as Chris: Sheva gets to be friendly and upbeat and a dedicated para-military professional. But despite being the designated local, she’s entirely here to support Chris, with no real plot of her own or personal investment in his mission. I mean, she does have some history with this other local squad leader guy called Josh, and there’s a bit where he might be dead or something and you have to go find him, but then he’s fine, NBD. Josh himself is about as interesting as Chris, and I can’t help but suspect he’s in this game mostly as a response to criticism that the only other notable black character (Sheva) was a light-skinned woman with a British accent, after which no-one had the guts to actually do anything with Josh for fear of accidentally being offensive. He's just there.

As usual for RE, the villains are far more memorable than the heroes: Wesker is here to leave no scenery unchewed in his usual ridiculous anime-villain way, and Excella… well, you can’t say she doesn’t have personality. But their plan is the usual uninspired dreck: do wildly unethical experiments to bring about the apocalypse and/or next stage in human evolution, get revenge on Umbrella by doing the exact same shit Umbrella always did, blah blah blah. You’ve seen it all a hundred times before.

Like so many RE titles, RE5 opens with a clear thesis statement: appropriately for a co-op shooter, this is a story about partnership. Chris’ reaction to meeting his new ‘partner’ Sheva is heavy with regret over the loss of his old partner, Jill. So, this is one of those Learning To Love Again kind of stories, where Chris has to learn to trust someone new, right? Or maybe Chris will have to make hard decisions between going after his brainwashed old partner, Jill, or backing up his new partner, Sheva? Nope! Maybe this theme comes through for some in the gameplay, but it sure doesn’t go anywhere in the narrative. Chris discovers Jill is alive and brainwashed all of one boss battle before Jill is rescued, immediately un-brainwashed, and promptly left behind again (because, like, she’s injured now and Chris has to trust his new partner, or something). So like so many RE titles, the opening thesis statement goes nowhere.

The other big problem with this game is the complete lack of atmosphere. You can (and RE frequently does) get away with bland heroes just fine if the setting has enough personality to carry the title, but RE5 doesn’t have that going either. There are probably writers out there who could tell a gripping horror story about a hardened para-military team hunting monsters in open spaces in bright sunlight, but they sure weren’t writing for RE5. The RE series at large is never more laughably absurd to me than when it’s trying to go full military shooter, and RE5 is doing that as hard as it can.

I haven’t yet touched on the big controversies this game arrived with, because lord knows I’ve got no special insight into how to respectfully portray African people and an African location. But I think it's safe to say that mindless waves of zombie-uncontacted-tribesmen waving primitive shields and clubs probably isn't a great way to represent Africa's native population. It's not like you're going to meet any un-zombie native tribesmen. Zombie is apparently just their default state.

Still, even from my limited, white-Australian perspective, what stood out most was just how irrelevant the African setting is to the greater plot. RE’s 2 and 3 were set in a (named) American city, with an American pharmaceutical company as its villains. RE4 was set in a Spanish village, with a pseudo-medieval cult as its villains. RE5 may be set ‘somewhere in Africa’, but both its hero and its villain are white Americans. There may be some vague faff about Wesker researching a particular local virus, but for all plot purposes, Africa is little more than an unfortunate bystander, an indifferent battlefield for foreign white people. The only African people worth talking to have guns, and are already working for Chris’ organisation. Jill of RE3 had to watch her home city and her own friends and colleagues fall to the zombie plague, but no-one pays more than the briefest lip-service to the broken communities or human casualties in RE5 – after all, there are bigger things at stake than a few African villagers, Chris has a missing white friend to find! Besides, there’s always, like, wars and famines and shit breaking out in Africa, it’s just a scary, violent place in general. The zombies probably didn’t even make it any worse, amirite?

Yeah, fuck that nonsense. The entire African continent exists to this game as an exotic location where lots of people can die without the player having the feel too bad about it.

Nothing in this game adds up to even the sum of its parts. The reveal of Jill’s face doesn’t produce a ‘omg, it’s Jill!’ reaction from the audience, it gets a ‘wait, who’s this generic blonde lady?’ The mind-control device Wesker uses on Jill is unrelated to any of the biological research he’s been using to turn other people into zombie slaves, it’s just a glowing mechanical thing that can be easily removed. There’s a document you can pick up which spells out a backstory for Sheva that is honestly more interesting than anything going on in the plot, but which fails to provide any insight into how an African-born native who was apparently educated in America has been walking around the whole game with a distinct British accent. The progenitor virus – the nominal excuse for the whole setting – is apparently nothing that Umbrella's researchers haven't already known about for decades.

Is there anything to recommend this game for? Well, Sheva is so much my cup of tea that she’s been turning my head ever since I first ran into a picture of her in some random gaming magazine sometime back around 2008, and I cannot even properly resent this game’s love of showing me close-ups on her ass (it’s a very nice ass, okay?) But after being saddled with such terrible gaming AI, she’s stuck being one of the more widely hated characters in this franchise, and she has so little story of her own that enjoying Sheva doesn’t get me very far.

Oh, and there's Chris' "Heavy Metal" alternate costume. That's certainly something.

RE5 is obviously reflective of the direction the franchise was already taking towards action and away from horror, but probably owes much more to Capcom chasing popular trends. Military co-op shooters set in sunny, arid locations populated by disposable brown people were in at the time, never mind whether that fit the Resident Evil brand. And though the game was a big sales success, it also led directly into the disaster that was RE6, which just about killed the franchise (though being forced to go back to the drawing board for RE7 inarguably did the series a world of good in the long run).

As successful as the remakes of 2, 3 and 4 have been, it’s hard to see the case for remaking RE5. Since 2009, the era of co-op mechanics being shoehorned into everything has come and (thankfully) gone – what was a controversial new direction for RE then isn’t likely to go down much better now. Though it’s now 14 years old, RE5 still looks like a modern game in a way that even the original RE4 doesn’t, and it can’t boast any of the first four games’ reputations as genre-defining classics. Is it possible to reimagine a title like RE5 enough to bring it more in-line with the other recent remakes without alienating those who remember the original fondly, campy co-op nonsense and all? Is it worth courting another round of ugly, racist controversy just to regurgitate a remake of a game so widely considered the franchise’s shark-jumping moment, and which was more of a sequel to the (so far un­-remade) Code Veronica than any of the previous remakes? That’s ultimately up to Capcom to decide, but my money’s on a ‘no’.

Since the semi-reboot of RE7 and 8, Capcom has already returned to much purer survival horror, and then again transitioned into a more action-focused experience a la RE4, effectively speed-running their way through early franchise history again in just two games. Is a continued shift back towards action in some RE5-style follow-up inevitable?

There are good reasons to wonder if that’s already the plan: Chris’ section at the end of RE8 was heavy on the military-shooter-isms, and there’s plenty more in the endgame and on the internet rumour mill to suggest he’s set to be the lead again for RE9. But speaking personally, ye gods do I hope not. Three more games since RE5 have not made Chris any more interesting to me as a character – not unless they’re willing to commit to the increasing hints he’s on the edge of going completely off the deep end into irredeemable villainy, and I doubt Capcom have the guts for that. The last thing this series needs is a new case of military-shooter-itis.

RE5 may not be the worst game in this franchise, but for my money, it’s easily the blandest. I can't speak for the whole fandom ‒ I can't even speak as someone who's actually played the original ‒ but I for one would prefer to see it left firmly in the past.

[starcasticallyyours]

starcastic’s fun facts about writing Art and Artifice

So, my Vmin Regency AU Art and Artifice is finally finished!! This feels rather surreal because I worked on almost nothing else for the past 6 months. It was such a good experience though because not only did I enjoy myself immensely with the craft and execution of this story, but the people who regularly commented were so wonderfully encouraging and made me feel like the sunken cost was all worth it. Thank you again, I love you all so much!

A lot went into the making of this story, so I really want to share more about how I wrote it as well as pointing out little Easter eggs I included, both relating to BTS or the time period. If any of this interests you, keep reading below!

FUN FACTS FIRST!

Not sure if anyone got this, but the title is in fact a riff on Pride and Prejudice! And the sequel will be even more silly by having a very Blackadder the Third take on another Austen title, but you’ll have to wait and see which one it is.

I already mentioned in an author’s note that each of the estates had IRL basis, but they also all had fictional ones. Harthaven is meant to evoke Mr Knightley’s Donwell Abbey with its stately farmcore vibes. Ivoring Hall should remind you of both Longbourn (especially with the Mins behaving rather Bennet-like) and Kellynch Hall (their money woes reflecting those of the Elliots). And of course, Davensley is a total rip-off of Mr Darcy’s Pemberley and is here to represent the epic breadth and majesty of all major English country estates.

Taehyung’s Grand Tour itinerary is based on Lord Byron’s from 1809-1811. I’m sure he desperately wanted to go to France and Italy but there’s a war going on out there, somewhere. And Seokjin isn’t here. (My Great Comet agenda will never rest)

Speaking of which, there should have been a Jin mention each update but I failed this when the Sope proposal scene became its own chapter and I forgot. Kind of bummed about it, not gonna lie.

I thought about having Yoongi read Sense and Sensibility at some point since it was published in October 1811. But then he went and established himself as an ardent enthusiast of gothic melodrama instead, how very Catherine Morland of him.

[major story spoiler] The backstory of why Merritt suddenly came back to England was that a great-aunt of his died and he had expected to be given her estate just to discover that this was not the case! Having sold his commission, he couldn’t return to a military career so he decided to wiggle his way back into Jimin’s life to gain his fortune/inheritance instead -- except he did not expect a) Minjeong’s wise decision to will Harthaven to Namjoon and b) Kim Taehyung. [end spoilers]

Not about the story/characters at all but I have a weird preoccupation with numbers so I’m particularly happy that I started this fic on 11/11 and managed to finish it on 5/5. 

A tidbit about the sequel: it will be from Namjoon’s POV and centred around him as he was mostly in the background throughout this story and deserves something good after his year of being sad. I’m looking forward to it because how he views himself is absolutely not the same way Jimin does!

THE WRITING PROCESS:

I almost always come up with a story’s ENTIRE plot before even writing it down. So after seeing @dayofkaryn​‘s tweet (like I’ve said so many times) in March, I was bit by a plot bunny and thought about it incessantly for about 2 months to figure out the main beats. This way, I can mentally test and veto things – at one point I had an entire other ending to the story that I never wrote down and ergo have totally forgotten what it was (something about Taegi teaming up against Merritt but I do not remember what their plan was at ALL). Of course, the final version of the story almost never resembles the chosen plot 100% faithfully, but having a roadmap is still really important for my personal security!

Next, I outline. Extensively. The version that I kept on tweaking and rewriting over the summer ended up at 11k words by the time I started. The point is that it’s a 0 draft and again, I’m figuring out the beats and identifying what needs to be done in regards to character development, structure, or just basic research.

I started drafting in late September and had the first 3 chapters ready by the first post in November (totally lost my head start by Christmas though, lol). When I draft, I cut/paste the section of outline that applies into a new Google doc and start forming them into sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes I end up rewriting the outline first, especially for later chapters after the story had developed into its own thing with a much clearer personality that deviated from the original plan! In draft mode, I also keep Wordhippo and Etymonline on nearby tabs to help me catch that word on the tip of my tongue and that my vocabulary choice is both period and suitably British. Luckily, thanks to where I grew up/currently live my spelling habits are already UK style!

Once drafted, I upload as a preview on AO3 and tweak for line edits/formatting there. Will admit that by the last 2-3 chapters this was not done and I would line edit after posting because my work schedule was hectic! But then the chapter is published, yay, and I go about my day trying not to think about it and reminding myself that the stats page is not an indicator of quality or worth. 

RESOURCES:

I’ll admit that I constantly googled shit while I drafted, ending up mostly on the blogs of Romance authors or Jane Austen fanpages. I do want to shout out this extremely cool collection of articles written by literally one person on very particular and niche topics from the era called the Regency Redingote. Even if it just came to one-liners about Jimin using a mote spoon or trimming quills, the wealth of information is just amazing and I could and have lost hours of time just reading about these random Regency things.

I also used videos for general education. Ellie Dashwood is a YouTuber who for a long time made Austen and 19th century her thing, so she was great for simple and straightforward explanations. (And she’s Yoongi biased!) There’s also this incredibly detailed re-enactment of a private ball by the Real Royalty history channel that they held in Edward Austen’s house! That one is just FUN to watch and learning more about the period via direct experience is a great way to do it in my opinion. And this one vlog about a pheasant shoot helped me significantly with Chapter 9 even if it’s very modern.

However, nothing beats immersing yourself in the OG stories! While writing this fic I revisited Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility from top to bottom, and picked up Venetia as a new Heyer read. I also checked out Jennifer Kloester’s Georgette Heyer’s Regency World from the library which had a lot of details about the setting and culture that was really useful. My library system has tons of Heyer actually, I should pick up another to celebrate finishing the AU!

WRITING SOUNDTRACKS:

I’m a creature of habit and usually will return to the same handful of mood music for a project. For A&A, these were on constant rotation:

For lighthearted scenes [like in chapters 4-7] / Jimin’s “theme”: the complete OST from Emma 2020. I genuinely love this movie for its cinematography and absurdity, and I love the soundtrack too! For Vmin scenes / Taehyung’s “theme”: Twoset Violin’s Mendelssohn 4mil Concert. I really, really like the Bach piano pieces at the start and end, and I find La Campanella to be very A&A!Taehyung coded: torrid and dramatic and also kind of ridiculous. I do pause writing whenever I hear the concerto starting to catch Brett’s panicked face when they prank him every single time, hahahaha

For Sope scenes / Yoongi’s “theme”: this collection of John Field’s nocturnes. My favourite is No. 10, the “Romance”. Soft and gentle, like our sweet Suga!! Other composers I would also put on from time to time were Beethoven, Pleyel (who Jane Austen was known to enjoy a lot), more John Field (concertos instead of nocturnes) and of course, BTS. C:

If you actually read to the end of this very self-indulgent and longwinded post, thank you for your patience! I hope you liked the story too, and are curious enough to see what the heck I’m going to do with pirates in the sequel. Because now I’m going to have to figure that out too. As always, I remain starcasticallyyours!

[piggybankstomfoolery]

It just occurred to me today that I had more fun yesterday playing The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog than I did playing Sonic Frontiers.

No joke: this game was just about everything I've wanted to see from Sonic for years. I didn't even watch the trailer for the game before playing: I saw the title and immediately went to the Steam page to download it, and in less than 30 seconds I was playing the game. I can't remember the last time a game hooked me that fast, let alone a Sonic game.

The Sonic IP is jam-packed with fantastic characters, and to see them finally tell a story in a game which puts a lot of them front-and-center and lets them just bounce off each other in a setup that doesn't spend its entire run with the usual looming threat of Eggman taking over the world and Sonic needing to fight the monster of the week and collecting the emeralds and going super and rinse and repeat is just...

man, this was so nice. You don't even spend most of this game with Sonic, you instead spend most of it with Tails! Tails!!!!!!!!!! I think if 10 year old me saw this game when he was a big Tails fan, he would have loved this game to pieces.

I feel relieved to see Sega of America and other branches of the IP filling with more people who do seem to care about trying to make Sonic a name equivalent with quality and fun again. This also felt like a much smarter game for marketing to produce than Big's Big Adventure 3, with a more focused scope and less of a desire to lean on one joke for the whole game. it felt like a lot of good lessons were learned.

Also, I've drawn a lot of silly light-hearted things with Sonic over the years where I've tried to capture a child-like quality to him and his world, but @thefantastician has always done a way better job on that front than I have. his work is incredible and a hoot and I love it, and you probably do too if you've played this game and loved his writing. It's all seriously wonderful stuff, and I'm glad to see him becoming more able to bring his imaginative whimsy to the world of Sonic.

Anyway, just wanted to scribble my thoughts down somewhere as I usually don't get to tell people what I think about games I play, lol. This wasn't a big ol' multi-million dollar extravaganza, but for what it's worth coming from me, I would still happily pay money to play smaller, lower-budget Sonic games like this one. They've definitely sold me on this concept. fingers crossed we can maybe get some more like it! 💖