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razanartuk · 3 years ago

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about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

#mel.rtf #abt me #tag games

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Marvel’s Loki Episode 3: MCU Easter Eggs and References

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This article contains Marvel’s Loki episode 3 spoilers.

Marvel’s Loki episode 3 is a big one. It’s the first episode of the series to spend the entirety of its runtime outside of the TVA offices, the first where we get to spend a substantial amount of time with the mysterious Sylvie, and the coolest visit to an extraterrestrial location we’ve had in the MCU since Avengers: Endgame.

It’s a big one, and there’s lots of cool MCU things you might have missed, or might not know about from the pages of Marvel Comics…and more!

Here’s what we found in Marvel’s Loki episode 3.

Lamentis

The planet Lamentis was introduced in the pages of Annihilation: Conquest Prologue (the very story that established the modern incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy). It exists on the outer rim of the Kree empire and is filled with scavengers trying to gather scarce resources via force. The Phyla-Vell version of Quasar and Moondragon were there to help keep the peace, mainly protecting a sect of pacifist priests from those who would take their stuff.

But to be clear, the events of Loki episode 3 take place on Lamentis-1, a moon of Lamentis, and it’s the planet itself that is breaking up and crashing into the moon, not the other way around.

Interestingly, while the lighting choices for this episode were most definitely a very specific story choice (more on that in a minute), it’s also in keeping with the way Lamentis was colored in its only comic book appearance.

Sylvie, Lady Loki, The Enchantress

We don’t get a TON of clarity on the nature of Sophia Di Martino’s Loki variant, but despite her “Sylvie” name, the balance is tipping further in the direction of her being a true “Lady Loki” and not strictly the Sylvie Lushton version of Enchantress from Marvel Comics (we wrote more about this confusing distinction here).

That being said, she’s not NOT Sylvie/Enchantress, either! It seems that Sylvie is indeed a variant Loki (recent merchandise reveals have officially shown that she is “Sylvie Laufeydottir” (as opposed to “Loki Laufeyson”) so that’s another sign that she’s truly a variant of our Loki. For some reason (probably a good one) she doesn’t want to be known as a Loki anymore, hence “Sylvie,” and she does use enchantments as a primary power, hence “Enchantress.”

So the answer here is still “yes” to any of these questions, but we’re leaning on the simplest explanation being the correct one: she’s a Loki variant, and in true MCU fashion they’re just mashing up other elements of mythology from the comics to make a cool new character.

There’s also some serious Moonlighting energy between the hedonistic Loki and the more serious and on-mission Sylvie all through this episode, but we’re wondering how many of you are even old enough to remember Moonlighting, and that is depressing.

The Loki/Enchantress-appropriate green tie-dye that Sylvie is rocking in the bar “flashback” is pretty cool, but not an Easter egg. But maybe we should bring tie-dye back this summer.

Loki is Bisexual

The “bisexual lighting” that Lamentis is bathed in throughout the entirety of the episode is no accident, as it’s revealed that both Loki and Sylvie are bisexual. Loki director Kate Herron spoke briefly about this reveal on Twitter, as well:

From the moment I joined @LokiOfficial it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge Loki was bisexual. It is a part of who he is and who I am too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now Canon in #mcu #Loki 💗💜💙 pic.twitter.com/lz3KJbewx8

— Kate Herron (@iamkateherron) June 23, 2021

As far as we can tell, in terms of the comics, Loki’s bisexuality first came up in Young Avengers #15. After saving the world and getting a bit of a pep talk from Prodigy, a late-teen incarnation of Loki hit on his teammate for the sake of celebration, but was ultimately turned down.

“My culture doesn’t really share your concept of sexual identity,” Loki said in that issue. “There are sexual acts, that’s it. I’m actually the patron god of certain popular ones, believe it or not.” (some very cursory research fails to confirm that last point, which would really be perfectly in keeping for Loki to lie about)

“Another!”

When partying up on the train, Loki smashes his empty glass and excitedly asks for another. This is exactly what his brother does in the first Thor movie after enjoying a cup of coffee at a diner. It’s an Asgardian custom!

The Songs

The song that opens the episode is “Demons” by Hayley Kiyoko, which also includes some potentially Loki-specific lines as “Please forgive me, I’ve got demons in my head, tryin’ to eat me, tryin’ to feed me lies until I’m dead.”

The song that closes the episode is “Dark Moon,” a 1957 country hit by Bonnie Guitar (there are other versions, including a rare one by Elvis Presley and a really cool one by Chris Isaak for the soundtrack of the very cool and underrated A Perfect World, but the version here is Bonnie’s). It’s a little on-the-nose with the events happening on Lamentis, but also features haunting lyrics that may hint at something more: “Mortals have dreams of love’s perfect schemes, but they don’t realize that love will sometimes bring a…Dark Moon.”

Does anyone know the name of the song that Loki sings while he’s “full?” If so, please let us know in the comments!

The TVA

The mobile devices that TVA agents use to navigate through timelines are given a name in this episode: TemPads.

We get a couple more bits of important TVA context this episode. The first is that apparently the Time Keepers reside at the top floor accessible by a golden elevator in the TVA offices. When Hunter C-20 said she “gave up the location” of the Time Keepers last week, who could have expected the answer to be so simple?

Additionally, Sylvie reveals at episode’s end that all TVA employees had a life prior to joining the TVA. In fact, every TVA worker was at some point a Variant just like Loki and Sylvie. This directly contradicts Miss Minutes’ claim that the TVA employees were created by the Time Keepers to police the Sacred Timeline. This may mean that Mobius was also lying to Loki about the nature of TVA agents…UNLESS…in the comics, Mobius was one of many Mobiuses, because the TVA engaged in “managerial cloning” for their best representatives, while employing “freelancers” for other work. Perhaps Mobius was telling Loki his truth, while Sylvie’s theory about the Variants being conscripted into service as Minutemen is ALSO true.

During the end credits, there’s a collection of TVA file photos on a desk, showing Loki and Sylvie together. Apparently, they’re getting their images from their exploits from Lamentis-1, as one photo is specifically Loki as a train guard. Looks like these two aren’t as hidden from the authorities as they realized.

Miscellaneous Time Variants

Funny enough, the shot of Loki landing after being thrown out of the train is framed to look exactly like when Loki fell out of Doctor Strange’s portal in Thor: Ragnarok.

The two soldiers at the entrance to the train are called Corporal Hicks and Private Hudson which is a neat nod to Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton’s characters in Aliens!

The guards on Lamentis look kind of like they’re wearing Cobra uniforms, don’t they?

There’s a serious Snowpiercer vibe to that “rich folks getting on a train to escape a natural disaster/apocalypse while the poor are left to suffer and die.” Wait, that is actually a real life vibe, too.

If episode 2 was a police procedural, this episode is very much “peak TV,” right down to its use of an obscure needledrop to end the episode coming out of an elaborate “one take” action sequence. Daredevil no longer has a monopoly on those in Marvel TV, it would seem.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Spot something we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s Loki Episode 3: MCU Easter Eggs and References appeared first on Den of Geek.

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becky69lu · 5 years ago

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Ed Edd n Eddy Music Taste Headcanons

Last night me and my friend came up with ideas of what the kids from Ed Edd n Eddy would listen to for music. And I thought I’d share with you all :) (You’re free to disagree but this is what I think the characters would like)

Ed: This guy would definitely be into soundtracks. Video games, horror movies, etc. He’ll enjoy them all. I feel like he’d be the type to explain why he likes a song on a soundtrack, like the vibes it gives him and how good it was in whatever game/movie it was.

Double D: Growing up he’d be into classical music by default. It’s all his parents played so it’s what he’s conditioned to like. I feel like as a result he’d never really have a preference to listen to music because he mainly uses it as a form of relaxation for studying or concentrating. But when he entered high school it’s a whole other story. He ends up befriending (or dating, depending what you ship) Marie. She introduces him to her music (which we’ll get into in a bit!). You’d expect Double D to hate it. Hardcore rock and heavy metal seemed a bit extreme. At first he might think it’s just noise. To his surprise, he ends up enjoying it immensely and starts to understand why people listen to music for fun. On more than one occasion Ed and Eddy will catch up to Double D in the hallways or the walk home from school and catch him blasting some heavy band. It surprises people greatly what Double D likes, but in a good way.

Eddy: This dude is the embodiment of the meme where you listen to rap with the homies but something else when alone. This guy will listen to Lil Peep and Juice WRLD, and don’t get me wrong he genuinely likes it, but it reaches its max appeal at some point. By himself he’ll listen to old school music. He really likes Elvis, Frankie Valli and Frank Sinatra. It’s what he grew up listening to with his dad in the car and loves it to this day. He’s not ashamed of it but prefers to look cool for listening to rap around random people. Really only Ed and Double D have listened to his playlist with him. The only thing he kind of hides which is a guilty pleasure is NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys. I feel like in high school Eddy and Kevin would be close bros, the kind that constantly pick on each other for fun but they really do appreciate each other and will be there for each other. As a result of their constant roasting, both of them listen to rap together but end up going home and listening to completely different things.

May: Growing up, all three of the Kanker Sisters listened to Country. Their mother enjoyed it so she’d play it around the house a lot. May’s the only sister who’s favorite genre is Country though. She loves Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, etc. In high school, her music taste opened up slightly. She likes pop music and enjoys a bit of Marina and the Diamonds, and Melanie Martinez (which she heard from Marie’s room and thought it sounded good.) She’s still a country girl at heart but enjoys bubblegum pop too. She’s also the type to enjoy basically anything, but she refuses to listen to heavy rock. Her limit to rock music is screaming, and at that point she wants to shut it off.

Marie: A rocker at heart. Of course she always dressed the part, but didn’t actually listen to rock music until she was 13. She entered her emo phase and never left. She likes classic rock, modern rock, and anything alternative or indie. Her favorites are Asking Alexandria, My Chemical Romance, A Day to Remember, Falling In Reverse and In This Moment. In terms of other music, she really likes P!nk, Avril Lavigne, and Ke$ha. The only genre she hates is country. For her, growing up listening to it constantly made her hate it because it was overplayed. She refuses to listen to it and sometimes her and May butt heads when in the car trying to play music.

Lee: This girl takes pride in her music taste. She flaunts her love for old school rap. She loves 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, B.I.G., Tupac, and Eminem. She’ll play it around whoever is willing to listen and genuinely enjoys it. If her and Eddy became friends (or dated) she’d get him into Eminem especially. Regarding other music, she enjoys anything 2000′s like Nelly and TLC. She still likes Country music too, but doesn’t listen to it as often as other stuff.

Rolf: He listens to foreign music. I feel like this one’s obvious but it’s true. He listens to music that’s poppin in his homeland. When he’s around Kevin and Nazz he actually grimaces at their playlist. He probably won’t like any of it, even if he’s open-minded about it. On occasion he’ll end up liking a few songs or artists from them but not a lot. I feel like he’d like a little bit of Post Malone.

Jimmy: He’s a THEATER KID!! When he goes to high school he immediately joins the theater program. He’s definitely that one kid that’s liked by everyone. But for music, he’d definitely enjoy musicals. Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked. You name it, he probably enjoys it. He also likes disney music as well like the soundtracks from Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. And he’ll definitely be in every spring musical and already know the songs.

Sarah: Since her and Jimmy are best friends, of course she also becomes a theater kid. She’s probably one of the most disliked people in the program but doesn’t care. She also enjoys musicals but not to the extent that Jimmy does. They still listen to them together all the time. She probably really likes pop music. Katy Perry is one of her favorites. She’s definitely a Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber fan. To be honest she probably went through a hardcore K-POP phase where she had a stan twitter and everything.

Jonny: He mainly just likes whatevers popular. He probably enjoys songs off of Tik Tok and is that annoying kid that plays meme music over and over. All Star by Smash Mouth is banned from the Cul de Sac because of him. He probably enjoys some soundtracks from video games as well. The type to just blast Revenge by Captain Sparkles for hours.

Kevin: We’ve already established that him and Eddy basically listen to the same thing. Lil Uzi Vert, Xxxtentacion, etc. That kind of thing. He tries especially hard to be cool. He’s definitely that kid with the speakers in his backpack blasting music down the hallway. But like Eddy, he listens to something else when he’s alone. He probably likes 70s and 80s hip hop and a little bit of classic rock because of his dad. Listens to Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Blackstreet. He’s not ashamed of his music taste, but definitely only plays modern rap in the car with the homies.

Nazz: She’s a carefree spirit. She likes old school rap too but appreciates a lot of older stuff. She likes Fleetwood Mac and Queen because of her mom. But she also really likes pop and Jazz. She likes Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, and Rihanna. Probably a big Beyonce stan too. Because shes a free spirit, she’ll listen to anything someone plays. She’ll enjoy heavy metal if someone puts it on or even Country. She doesn’t care. If she likes something she’ll definitely go home and look up more stuff. She probably has the most diverse music taste of them all.

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geekgemsspooksandtoons · 4 years ago

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My thoughts on Bioshock 1

I just wanna put this out there. It’s 12:01 am and I find it nice that I finished it before Sunday popped up. This post is gonna have major spoilers. I’ll post the screenshots in a different post. I don’t know if I should call this a review. But yeah I didn’t wanna make this quickly. Took time making some popcorn(two bags for a bowl) and getting a Diet Dr. Pepper.

But my thoughts on the game itself. A game that gamers have considered one of the greatest video games ever made.

I want you all to know. The reason I went back to playing it because I was looking up the terrible voice acting of the original RE game. That it got me to wanting to play a older game...which is the first Bioshock on my main computer.

But in a nutshell I thought it was a pretty nice game. The gameplay is pretty stellar. Especially the combat. But I will admit, the game didn’t really scare me. Because it was considered horror by some folks. But the way I was playing I think a way how you would describe....something out of the Doom series.

Yet this is because I was playing on easy mode. Because I wanted to experience the story. Especially when I upgraded my weapons. I was basically a walking powerhouse. Along with the fact I didn’t use my plasmids a whole lot. But I did use them when they seem needed or when I wanted to try them out. I was mainly a weapons guy.

But yeah upgraded weapons made the journey easier. Even during the final boss with Frank.

The story is pretty alright. Even though some of the audio diaries I decided not to listen to except for some. Especially when the big reveal was coming.

I will admit and I think people may know of this. But I knew of the big twist and read stuff about how Jack was basically controlled through most of the game. Where the phrase, “Would You Kindly” Atlas was saying to control him. Where this becomes more clear when you enter a room that has, “Would You Kindly’ on the wall and...those diaries crap....a dog getting it’s neck snapped....to be honest I feel like the moment Jack see’s that. I feel like he was probably confused or just wondering, “What the fuck?”.

But basically where Andrew Ryan exposes this by saying the phrase a couple of times, and asking Jack to kill him with the golf club. Gonna admit to watch that twist in motion, for some reason I wasn’t expecting it to be that dramatic. Because I was expecting it to be simply casual with Andrew explaining what Jack is actually. Where Jack realizes when Andrew asks Jack to kill him, he was telling the truth. Yet I strangely like it how Andrew was trying to showcase more that using the phrase a few time to really showcase Jack was never in control.

Yet it was nice to finally see the scene in full motion in the original game. Since I’m not playing the remastered version.

To be honest I think the most shocking thing was the fact when I went on the Bioshock wiki. That Jack is literally 4 years old. 0_0 Just....I actually found that to be the most surprising.

Including just the whole set up of why Jack is there isn’t by chance. Honestly despite the dimension hopping that surprised me a lot. Just Jack growing up and all that...surprised me the most.

But I find it nice how Andrew during the game as you get closer to him. He’s alluding to the fact that it seems like such a coincidence that Jack crashed near that lighthouse above Rapture. As if it was some sort of miracle.

I’ll stop talking about the twist sorry. So I was right, Atlas who is Frank didn’t really have a family. I will admit Frank’s a pretty damn good actor. Because I feel like people who first played this and if I didn’t look into certain stuff. It would of been more of a surprise. Because I find it amazing he can change his voice.

Including the fact when you get closer to him. He’s just talking about you and him tricking you. Including why are you even still trying to get him. When Jack doesn’t have a family. I guess I can say he didn’t disappoint me as a villain.

Again the gameplay is wonderful, Rapture was a interesting place. Both to look at and I guess to explore. I will admit I sometimes couldn’t find some stuff right away. Such as a Big Daddy helmet after a while.

The Splicer are cool and have some variety, the Big Daddies are pretty nice too. Yet what I’m amazed by and I’m glad I couldn’t find that Big Daddy helmet right away because the last two Little Sisters that were with Big Daddies were near by.

I actually got all the Little Sisters that I recall. Basically rescuing all of them. Meaning I got the best and what I know canon ending. Gonna admit that last scene and just watching that cutscene. Despite it’s actually very quick. I can’t believe I had tears or so....despite I don’t seem to build a connection with these girls.

There is just something beautiful about that ending. Including to see they offered Jack the key to Rapture but he denies it.

Also there is something of just seeing all these Little Sisters just literally murder Frank and I got a shot of that actually. I saw that in a video once and it’s just intriguing. It seems kind of ridiculous but once you play the game, you understand how they are overpowering him.

The soundtrack....I’ll be honest I didn’t think about it much. Mainly because I was so focused on gameplay and getting through the game. Also weird thing this didn’t happen a lot. But I remember one time one of Franks line was up and he wasn’t talking.

Listen to any fans of Bioshock, sorry that I’m rambling. But I’m sorry I’m not praising it to the heavens. But I felt like I did myself a favor because this is a very loved game. It was nice to finally play it and finish it. I think it’s because I’m still processing some stuff. Including during a time in my life I thought gameplay is more important than story. Which was a thought I started having when I became a fan of Doom. But then loving Resident Evil again got me to realize liking video game stories. Considering before the gameplay thing, I would always prefer a single player over multiplayer.

But now I like both. It’s just I was I guess annoyed by how much praised Bioshock gets and it makes it seem like 2 and Infinite are hated on a lot. Including it just...bothered me and that I’d felt rebellious to not play the original. Because people made it seem like what I like to call it, “The Citizen Kane Of Gaming”. It was a game changer and I should understand that.

Yet you can thank my good bro and buddy @pikablob for being the reason why I got into this series more. All because I was wondering why does Elizabeth in Burial At Sea look so young but in the timeline she would be 66. Until he explained to me things about dimension hopping and after my surprise and shock of what he told me. That got me basically be like, “Okay I need to play these games because holy shit”. Even though I’ve played 2 before and finished Infinite and Burial At Sea episode 1 before.

It was just so insane to learn that I needed to experience these games myself as I’m older now.

I feel like overtime I’ll like Bioshock more. Because I had predicted this could become one of my all time favorites. But I don’t think so right now. Maybe when I ever replay it again and maybe even the remastered version. I may love it more. But I felt like compared to games like the original Doom, Doom 2016, Halo Combat Evolved(Because I recall from my experience that game is a classic), and even the Call Of Duty Modern Warfare trilogy. Especially 1 and 2, with 3 being a fitting conclusion to it. I got more out of those games.

Which I sound stupid for mentioning. Bioshock is a whole different beast. I’m talking about a game where someone like Andrew Ryan literally made a city underwater that wouldn’t be affected by what he considered, “Petty morality” and look where Rapture ended up as....a fucking shit hole.

That I recall I don’t feel terrible seeing Andrew Ryan die. Yet it’s probably because he wants to die and he accepts it. Including his final words and the way the scene went. Yet I was surprised that golf club got stuck in his head when Jack did the final blow.

But I think that’s just my mind set. Including on a silly note and I’m finally gonna say something I’ve had in my head. I just miss Elizabeth. Again I may enjoy it more as time goes all. Because it is a excellent game.

Because even though I haven’t played the remastered versions of Bioshock 1 and 2. I feel like if you want to. I’d recommend checking out the original Bioshock if you want to. It’s a well made game and I hope I think it’s genius about the fact The Bioshock Collection exists and it’s on 8th gen consoles now(Especially it got released on Nintendo Switch last month) and for PC’s if you want remastered versions of the first 2.

Basically was looking at trailers for the collection. I think it’s genius because that package seems perfect for any new fan who wants to experience the complete saga as of now.

I think I’ve said enough on my piece on the original Bioshock.

Anyway during the making of this post. I was listening to this kick ass rap. I find it awesome I finished the game and got to experience it for my own. Here’s JT Music’s Bioshock 1 rap, “Rapture Rising”. Been listening to this when making this. Warning in case even though I talked about spoilers in here, you have spoilers in this rap. Again well done rap.

youtube

#bioshock

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years ago

Text

2010s Art: Music, Games, and TV

So I love all forms of art. It may not seem like it since I tend to stick mainly to movies, with the odd cartoon or video game thrown in, but that’s really because movies are more my thing due to not being massive time investments. Like, don’t get me wrong, I gamed, I watched TV, I listened to music, but it was a lot more casual than my deep dive into becoming a major cinephile.

With games and TV, it was mostly issues of money and time respectively. I have a few consoles, mostly Nintendo and Sony ones, and my wife helped me experience Xbox games, but I just don’t have the money needed to experience every good game that comes out. With TV, the time investment is the biggest roadblock, especially when all the best shows have hour-long episodes these days. With movies, I just have to spend 90 minutes to two hours on average; for TV, it’s countless hours I could be watching movies. As for music… well, I listened to a lot, I just don’t feel totally qualified to properly rank and list songs and albums.

So instead of the big decade-spanning list for movies that I’m doing, I’m going to go over some things I enjoyed from the past decade and maybe a few things I didn’t in music, TV, and video games. Here’s a little guide so you know what stuff is something I consider one of my absolute favorites in any given medium - if it’s from this decade, it will be in bold, and if it’s from a previous decade but I experienced it this decade, it will be underlined.

Television

I figured I’d get this out of the way first since it’s the medium I have the least experience with. Let me put it this way: I have seen only one season of Game of Thrones, the first one (and by all accounts I dodged a bullet by dropping that show). I also had the misfortune of jumping in to The Walking Dead right as it was gearing up for its abysmal second season, which turned me off that and led to me only watching an episode here or there.

I had better luck watching live action shows on streaming. I managed to get through almost all of Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, which was a chore in and of itself; it’s a good show, but boy could it ever get arbitrary and frustrating. Speaking of Netflix, I think it goes without saying that Stranger Things is their best effort; from the likable cast of kids to the awesome soundtrack, even though it never really surpasses season one the show always has something cool going on in one of its plots. My other favorite from Netflix would probably be their take on A Series if Unfortunate Events, which is how you do adaptation expansion right; everything they add feels like it’s in service of fleshing out Lemony Snicket’s dismal world, as well as giving Patrick Warburton an incredible dramatic role as the Lemony narrator himself.

Amazon managed to score two hits in my book. The first is the unbelievably fun and charming Good Omens, a miniseries that somehow got me to love David Tennant and Michael Sheen more than I already did. The second was the gory joyride that is The Boys which while not the smartest or most original superhero satire is definitely the most fun.

While I didn’t watch the whole show and would not consider it one of my favorites, I do want to give props to Hannibal for introducing me to Mads Mikkelsen. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only person aside from Hopkins worthy of playing everyone’s favorite cannibal. Another show I DO consider a favorite despite slacking on keeping up with it is Ash vs. Evil Dead; I only needed to see a single season of Bruce back with the boomstick to know this show was a masterpiece.

On the animated side I have much more to talk about. Not since the 90s have we been spoiled with so many genuinely great and varied cartoons. We got Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe… really, Cartoon Network raised the bar this decade and made up for an awful 2000s. They even finally gave Samurai Jack a conclusion, which despite the mixed results, was still a real exciting phenomenon to experience.

Of course, my favorite CN show came from Adult Swim. I am of course referring to Rick & Morty, a fun sci-fi adventure comedy that attracted the most obnoxious fanbase possible in record time. While certainly not a show you need a high IQ to understand and having an atrocious third season, it still manages to be funny and thought provoking in equal amounts. Seriously though. Fuck season 3.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is another great show that I sadly fell off the wagon of around the fifth or sixth season. It never got bad of course but it never really engaged me like the older episodes, though what I’ve heard of the last season makes me wish I’d kept up with it. It was a great show with a lot of heart and character, and I’m not sure we’ll ever see a show like it again.

Netflix did not slack in the animation department; I didn’t catch their most famous show (it’s the one about a certain Horseman) but I did catch their fantastic take on Castlevania, which as a huge fan of the series was a real treat. Where the fuck is Grant though?

My two favorite shows of the decade, however, are what I see as the pinnacle of East and West: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Gravity Falls.

JJBA is a series I had vague passing knowledge of, only knowing its existence due to seeing Stone Ocean referenced on the Wikipedia page for air rods when I was younger and, of course, the memes that spawned from Heritage for the Future, which were inescapable back in the day. As soon as I got into the series, it became one of my biggest inspirations, teaching me you can be deep, complex, and filled with great character interactions while also being so batshit insane that every new and absurd power is incredibly easy to buy (looking forward to the rainbows that turn people into snails, animators). They managed to get through the first four parts and start up the fifth over the decade; so far my favorite part is four, mainly due to the magnificent bastard that is Yoshikage Kira (played time perfection by D.C. Douglas) and in spite of serial creep Vic Mangina playing the otherwise lovable asshole Rohan Kishibe.

Gravity Falls on the other hand is just a fun and engaging mystery show that manages to excel at being episodic and story-driven all at once. There’s only one or two “bad” episodes across two seasons, and it lasted just as long as it needed to, wrapping things up with a satisfactory ending that still gave fans a few mysteries to chew on. It also gave us Grunkle Stan, perhaps the greatest character in all of animation, the pinnacle of “jerk with a heart of gold” characters who is hilarious, badass, and complex all at once. This is my favorite western animated show…

...but then the last year of the decade threw a curveball and, if I’m being honest, is on par with Gravity Falls: Green Eggs and Ham. Netflix really wanted us to know 2D animation is back in 2019; between this show and Klaus, the future is looking bright for the medium. It’s a fun, funny roadtrip comedy that knows when to be emotional and when to be funny, and it’s all filtered through the wubbulous world of Dr. Seuss. It’s just a wonderfully delightful show.

And on the subject of JoJo, I had a kind of love-hate relationship with anime this decade. The attitudes of anime fans turned me off from anime for a long while. Sure, I checked out stuff like Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online, but neither series really clicked with me. The main anime I loved this decade were ones that started in the 2000s and ended in the 2010s, like Dragon Ball Z Kai and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I suppose I did enjoy My Hero Academia, which is a really fun show with an awesome and varied cast and great voice acting. Love Froppy, best girl for sure.

One of the most unfortunate things about this decade was how many great shows got screwed over by their networks. Sym-Bionic Titan, Thundercats, and The Legend of Korra were all great shows in their own right but were treated like shit by their respective networks. It really makes me upset that stuff like that not only happened, but continues to happen to this day.

But let’s not end on a bad note; let’s talk about the astounding returns old shows got. Invader Zim got a movie as did Hey Arnold, with the latter in particular finally wrapping up the dangling plot threads, but those are actual TV movies so they don’t really fit here; what DOES fit is Static Cling, the triumphant return of Rocko’s Modern Life. A forty minute special, it follows Rocko and his friends as they navigate the modern age, trying to bring back Rocko’s favorite cartoon. Rachel Bighead’s arc in this in particular is pretty groundbreaking and awesome.

Also awesome was the first few episodes of Samurai Jack’s return, though it did end up petering out halfway through the season and ended on an anticlimactic note. Still, Tom Kenny’s Scaramouche, the sheer amount of continuity, and the awesome final curbstomp battle against Aku are worth giving this a watch. And if nothing else, stuff like this gives me hope for future revivals. What will we see next? Gargoyles comeback? Batman Beyond continuation? KENNY AND THE CHIMP REVIVAL?! Chimpers rise up!

Music

Much like everyone, I listened to a lot of music this decade. There was a lot of shit, and I definitely used to be one of those “wow no one makes good music anymore” morons, but I grew out of that and learned to look in the right places.

Let’s start with the albums I loved the most. Continuing her meteoric rise from the 2000s, Lady Gaga drooped her magnum opus, Born This Way, an album that successfully showcases her skills as she takes on numerous pop styles. No two songs sound the same, and with a couple of exceptions every song slaps. While we’re on the subject of pop stars, Gaga’s contemporary and lesser Katy Perry managed to hit a home run with the fun bit of pop fluff that was Teenage Dream.

Weird Al was sorely missed for most of the decade, but what albums he did drop featured some of his best work. While Alpocalypse doesn’t hold up quite so well, it’s still solid, but even then it is blown out of the water by Mandatory Fun, an album that just refuses to stop being funny from start to finish. And that’s not the only funny albums this decade; aside from artists I’ll get more into later, George Miller AKA Filthy Frank released Pink Season as one of his last great acts as his character of Pink Guy. The album is as raunchy and filthy as you’d expect. And then for unintentional comedy, Corey Feldman dropped Angelic 2 The Core, an album so musically inept that it ends up becoming endearing; it’s The Room of music.

As I gamed a lot this decade I got to experience a lot of great video game soundtracks, but the two I found to be the absolute best were Undertale and Metal Gear Rising’s. I couldn’t tell you which soundtrack is better, and I’ve actually made a playlist on my iPod containing my favorite tracks from both games. Pokemon had solid soundtracks all decade, but they definitely were better in single tracks such as Ultra Necrozma’s theme from USUM and Zinnia’s theme from ORAS.

And speaking of individual songs, there were a lot I really loved. The disco revival in the easel ide half of the decade lead to gems like “Get Lucky,” “Uptown Funk,” and… uh, “Blurred Lines.” The controversy to that one might be overblown, but it sure isn’t anything I really want to revisit.

Corey Feldman may be the king of unintentional comedy, but this decade was seriously ripe with so bad it’s good music. The crown jewel is without a doubt the giddy, goofy “Friday,” but I think the equally stupid but also endlessly more relatable Ark Music production “Chinese Food” is worth some ironic enjoyment as well.

Meme songs in general were pretty enjoyable, though it came at a price. Remember when everyone tried to be funny by ripping off “Gangnam Style?” Remember when people took that Ylvis song at face value? Irony and satire were lost on the masses. I think the best mene song of the decade, though, is “Crab Rave,” a bouncy instrumental dance track with a fun music video and an absurd yet hilarious meme tacked to it. And then we have “The Internet is for Music,” a gargantuan 30 minute mashup featuring every YTMND, 4chan, Newgrounds, and YouTube meme you could think of (at the time of its release anyway),

Then we get into artists. Comedy music was great this decade, with Steel Panther and The Lonely Island putting out great work all decade, but by far my favorite funny band is Ninja Sex Party. Dan “Danny Sexbang” Avidan and Brian “Ninja Brian” Wecht are pretty much my favorite entertainers at this point, with them easily being able to go from doing goofy yet epic songs where they fuck or party to doing serious and awesome cover albums where Dan flexes his impressive vocals. A big plus is how all of their albums are easily some of my favorites ever, with not a single bad CD, and that’s not even getting into their side project Starbomb. These guys are a treasure.

Then we have Ghost, a Swedish metal band who play up the Satanic panic for all it’s worth. These guys captured my interest when I heard the beautiful “Cirice” on the radio, and despite that song rocking the fuck out, Imagine my surprise when it ended up being only middle of the road awesome for this band! With killer original songs like “Rats,” “Mary in the Cross,” and “Square Hammer” to a awesome covers like “Missionary Man” and “I’m a Marionette,” it’s almost enough to get a guy to hail Satan. I think they appeal to me mainly because they have a style very in line with the 80s, most evident on tracks like “Rats.”

While I’d hesitate to call him one of my favorite musicians yet (he is really good so far though), one of my favorite people in entertainment is Lil Nas X. From his short but sweet songs that crush genre boundaries to his hilarious Twitter feed, this guy is going places and I can’t wait to see what those places are.

And finally, the guy I think may be one of the greatest creative geniuses alive and who has nearly singlehandedly shaped Internet culture with everything he does… Neil Cicierega. While it’s not like I only discovered him in the 2010s - the guy has been an omnipresent force in my life since Potter Pupper Pals debuted - he definitely became the guy I would unflinchingly call the greatest artist of our time over that period. Whether he’s releasing the songs under his own name or as Lemon Demon, you can always be sure that the songs are going to burrow into your brain. His Lemon Demon album Spirit Phone, which features songs about urban legends and the horrors of capitalism, is easily my pick for album of the decade. And then under his own name he released three mashup mixtapes: Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence, and Mouth Moods. All three are stellar albums, but only Mouth Moods has “Wow Wow,” the bouncing track about homoerotic bee-loving Will Smith and outtakes so good they deserve to be on the next album.

Video Games

Having a PC this decade was great because it let me experience a lot of games I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, like Half-Life, BioShock, Earthnound, Mother 3, and Final Fantasy VI and VII. All of these and more are among my favorite games of all time now, but we’re here to talk about the stuff from this decade I consider great.

It’s hard to talk about this decade in gaming without mentioning Skyrim. Yes, it has flaws and the main storyline is a bit undercooked, but there’s so much fun to be had dicking about in the wilderness it’s hard to be too mad. And if you have mods, there are endless opportunities to expand the game. The same is true for the other game I have sunk countless hours into, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Not only is there a thriving modding community, but it has been supported and encouraged by the creators and some mods have even made the leap into becoming fully canon! It’s always a blast to revisit and see how far I can break the game with item combos.

Surprisingly, Batman managed to get not one, not two, but THREE awesome licensed games this decade! Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and the unfairly maligned Arkham Origins all kick as much ass as the Dark Knight himself. The former two reunite Mark Hamill and Kevin McConroy as Joker and Batman while the latter features numerous stellar boss battles. The combat in these games is so graceful and fluid, you WILL feel like Batman at some point, be it after flawlessly clobbering two dozen mooks or silently eliminating a room of thugs before they even realize you’re there.

Pokémon had a bit of a rocky decade; it started out strong with the fifth generation, the best games in the series with a great story, region, and sidequests and then just went downhill from there. Not incredibly so, of course - the games were always fun at least - but gens VI through VIII were not the most graceful steps into 3D. Still, every gen managed to produce some of my all-time favorite Pokémon. Gen V had Volcarona, Chandelure, and Meloetta; Gen VI gave us Hoopa, Klefki, the Fairy type in general, and a gorgeous mega evolution for my favorite Pokémon, Absol; Gen VII had the Ultra Beasts and Ultra Necrozma, some of the coolest concepts in the series, as well as Pyukumuku; and Gen VIII gave us Cinderace, Dracovish, Dracozolt, Polteageist, Hatterene, Snom, and Zacian. And those are just samplings mind you, these gens are full of hits.

Bringing back old franchises yielded amazing results. Look no further than the triumphant return of Doom in 2016, which had you ripping and tearing through the forces of Hell with guns, chainsaws, and your bear fucking hands. This game is HARDCORE. Less bloody and gory but no less awesome was the return of not just Crash Bandicoot, but Spyro as well in remakes that are easily the definitive ways to experience the games. And don’t even get me started on the remastered DuckTales!

Platinum games did not fuck around this decade, delivering Bayonetta 2 and Metal Gear Rising. The former is a balls-to-the-wall sequel to the amazing original Bayonetta that, while lacking in bosses quite as impressive as the first game’s, is more polished and has a fun story and a better haircut for Bayonetta; the latter is an action game so insane it makes the rest of the Metal Gear franchise look tame in comparison. The latter in particular is in my top ten games ever, with every boss battle feeling epic, all the music kicking ass, and Raiden truly coming into his own as a badass.

Speaking of Metal Gear, the divisive The Phantom Pain easily earns its place here. While much fuss has been made about the game being “unfinished,” it still has a complete and satisfying ending even if it doesn’t totally wrap up the dangling plot threads the young Liquid Snake leaves behind. The overarching themes as well as Venom and his relationship with characters like Kaz, Paz, and ESPECIALLY Quiet make this game, with his and Quiet’s being particularly beautiful and tragic. The Paz quest, Quiet’s exit, and the mission where Snake has to put down his men after they get infested with parasites are all some of the most heartbreaking moments in the franchise. But it’s not all tears; there’s plenty of fun to be had harassing Russians in Afghanistan while blaring 80s synth pop from your Walkman. Oh yeah, and fuck Huey.

The Ace Attorney series also thrived, with both Spirit of Justice and Dual Destinies transitioning the series into 3D a lot more graceful than some other franchises while still maintaining the with and charm the series is known for. And if that wasn’t enough for my point-and-cluck adventure needs, Telltale had me covered with The Wolf Among Us and the first season of The Walking Dead. The stories and characters of those games are so good, it’s enough to make you sad they never got a timely sequel or sequels that weren’t shit respectively.

This decade is when I really got into fighting game, though I’m not particularly good. I supported Skullgirls (and am even in the credits!), and got into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (and I also got into its spiritual predecessor, Heritage for the Future). But by and large my favorite fighting game of the decade and the one I’m actually pretty good at is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the most ridiculously ambitious crossover in video game history. The fact that the game is STILL getting more characters added is a testament of how insanely great the game is because instead of being mad that there’s so much DLC, people are going rabid waiting for news of more. It’s such an awesome, complete game out the door that the DLC feels earned rather than half a game being held hostage. Other devs, take note!

A lot of franchises put their best foot forward for sequels. God of War III was an awesomely bloody finale to the original journey of Kratos, with more epic bosses than ever; now he’s off fighting Norse gods, and I hear that game is even better! Portal 2 is just an absolute blast, and easily surpasses the first game on the merit of having Cave Johnson alone; the fact we get Wheatley and the malfunctioning personality cores honestly feels like overkill. Then we have BioShock… 2. While it’s certainly not as good as the first game, I think it was a lot of fun, and it got way too much flak.

I think it definitely aged better than Infinite which, while still a good game in its own right (it’s hard to hate a game with a character as endearing as Elizabeth), definitely was not warranting the levels of acclaim it got with such a muddled narrative. “Overrated” and “overhyped” are not words I keep in my vocabulary and I certainly would not describe Infinite as such, but I do feel like people got swept up in the gorgeous visuals and the story bits and characters that are effective and so weren’t nearly as critical of its flaws. It’s still a good, fun game with an interesting world, but it pales in comparison to the other two BioShocks. I feel like The Last of Us is in a similar boat. That being said, I couldn’t tell you why; it has a great story, good characters, plenty of replayability, and fascinating enemy design. But despite all that, I appreciate this game more than love it. It’s the Citizen Kane of video game sin that regard at least.

I’d be remiss to not mention the big indie successes of the decade. Shovel Knight is easily one is the greatest platform era ever made, taking everything great about the platformers on the NES and SNES, removing the bullshit, and delivering numerous bonus campaigns with unique playstyles. Then there was Abobo’s Big Adventure, a marvelous mashup of all sorts of games starring the beloved Double Dragon mook as he goes on a bloody quest to save his son. It’s a blast and there is tons of variety but some sections are definitely as hair-pullingly difficult as the games that inspired them. And then there is Doki Doki Literature Club, the free visual novel that brutally subverts your expectations. Sadly, I do feel the game loses some impact on subsequent playthroughs, but it’s still a great, effective story that skillfully utilizes meta elements.

Still, the greatest indie success of them all is Toby Fox’s masterpiece, Undertale. Charming, funny, emotional, and populated by a cast of some of the most fun and lovable characters ever conceived, this game was an instant smash and is still talked about to this day. Sure, things like Sans have been memed to death, but it’s hard to not just love and cherish the beautiful world Toby Fox managed to create. This game may not be the greatest game of all time, but for what it is I wouldn’t hesitate to name it the game of the decade.

There was a lot of great art in the 2010s, and while I couldn’t get around to all of it, I’m so happy with what I got to experience. Here’s hoping that the 2020s can be just as amazing!

#Music #video games #TV

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Ten Things I Learned from the Watchmen Movie

by Dan H

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Dan resists the urge to use a variant of “Who Watches the Watchmen” for his title.~

This was going to be a longer article, but I actually don't want to devote any more time to this ass-boring piece of shit.

Here's ten things I learned from watching the Watchmen (damn, I actually can't avoid using that sentence) movie.

1. I never want to see another Zack Snyder movie again. Seriously.

2. The seats in the Odeon are actually not fit for purpose.

3. When you decide not to see a movie because

one of the screenwriters is a smug twat

you should just not see it.

4. When adapting a comic book to the screen you should change the fucking dialogue. Things that look good written down just sound fucking stupid when somebody is trying to say them.

5. TV shows advertise in cinemas, how weird is that?

6. When you are adapting a comic book to the screen you should let the actors fucking move. Movies dudes – the clue is in the name.

7. When you are adapting a comic book to the screen you do not have to leave space in the shot for the speech bubbles.

8. If you get the urge to leave a cinema thirty minutes into the film, you should just leave. Particularly if you know exactly what every fucking scene will be because it does not deviate from the source material in any way.

9. Alan Moore dates really, really badly.

10. The plot of Watchmen doesn't actually make sense.

That's it. That's all the time and energy I can bring myself to expend on this.Themes:

TV & Movies

Watchmen

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

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Arthur B

at 09:54 on 2009-03-12On 2: Yes, definitely, they're terrible. There's no leg room, which I suppose is a vice which cinemas will always indulge in, but the lack of fucking

cup holders

is baffling. Do they

enjoy

cleaning up spillages?

On 9: Somewhat agreed. I think the film would have been more timely a few years ago, when people doing terrible things out of the fear of WMDs and Republican Presidents being cacklingly evil would have hit a bit more of a raw nerve. Even then, it would be a victim of the comic's success; pretty much everyone who writes superhero stories since

Watchmen

came out is responding to it, if only in the sense that just about everyone who writes superhero stories has read it and has an opinion (pro- or anti-, mainly pro-) on it. It changed the genre it studied, and therefore immediately became outdated.

I still think

From Hell

is the only Moore book which has a claim to timelessness. Maybe it's the fact that it's ruminating on crimes that were a century old when the book was written in the first place.

10: I think people make more of a big deal out of the plot than it really merits. (Seriously, who cares whether it's a fake alien squid or a fake blue dick that blows the cities up?) It's just a framing device which, IMO, is deliberately over-the-top and stupid because

Watchmen

is a love letter to the superhero genre as well as a critique of it; the meat is in the character studies.

This does not change the fact that people are crying hot buttery tears about the squid not being in the film.

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Wardog

at 10:11 on 2009-03-12Watchmen is a love letter to the superhero genre as well as a critique of it; the meat is in the character studies.

Really? I thought it was about comics?

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Arthur B

at 10:31 on 2009-03-12

Really? I thought it was about comics?

I am mildly confused as to what you mean here but I'll try to answer it.

When

Watchmen

was written the superhero genre consisted of a) comics and b) adaptations from the comics. You didn't have (to my knowledge) anything like

The Incredibles

Soon I Will Be Invincible

Wild Cards

, where you have original sources for superhero stories which aren't comics.

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Rami

at 10:36 on 2009-03-12What's faintly depressing is that lots of the vaguely interesting and meta things coming out of Watchmen have already been done on film (

even in CG

), and people are still going on about how Revolutionary it is.

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Arthur B

at 10:45 on 2009-03-12

The Incredibles

can't be revolutionary because nobody has their arms cut off with a circular saw.

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Rami

at 10:46 on 2009-03-12Oh yes that's right, it's too family-friendly to be Gritty and Edgy and Totally Making You Look Differently At Life...

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Dan H

at 11:28 on 2009-03-12

It's just a framing device which, IMO, is deliberately over-the-top and stupid because Watchmen is a love letter to the superhero genre as well as a critique of it; the meat is in the character studies.

I dunno, I always thought that the whole "blow up the world to save the world" thing was supposed to be srs bzns. Fake Squid or Fake Blue Guy doesn't really make any difference, but I absolutely don't think it's supposed to be deliberately stupid.

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Arthur B

at 11:39 on 2009-03-12There's a man saying "What do you think I am? Some sort of supervillain?" as he wears a costume straight out of

Flash Gordon

in the middle of his Egyptian-themed fortress in the Antarctic as his genetically engineered lynx pads about, as the climax of an exchange in which he explains precisely how his scientifically ludicrous doomsday weapon fits into his epic scheme to change the world, and you think it's not intentionally silly?

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Dan H

at 11:50 on 2009-03-12I think it's intentionally *bathetic*.

You're missing two really important points, the first one being that the "what do you think I am, some sort of Supervillain" line is *followed* by the revelation that Ozymandias' scheme has actually worked. It's a bait-and-switch, he does the classic Villain speech in full on Villain attire in his Secret Arctic Base, but at the last second it is revealed that he has beaten the genre convention by putting his plan into action before the heroes were ready.

The second point is that Ozymandias' plan actually *works*. He genuinely does bring about world peace, and prevent the annihilation of humanity.

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Arthur B

at 12:02 on 2009-03-12But I think the point of the sequence is not to have a trite "guy who does supervillainous stuff but actually brings about a good thing" ending so much as it is meant to make a statement about the interaction of superheroes and supervillains (and to do that it needs to make sure the heroes are acting like heroes and the "villain" is acting like a wildly over-the-top villain).

The whole deal with the end of Watchmen is that it turns out Adrian was the only person acting proactively all along and everyone else was just reacting to him, just as in superhero comics in general the heroes are eternally reactive and only villains are proactive; it's the villains who are actually hoping to achieve something, and all the heroes ever try to do is get in the way of that.

But at the same time, I think in terms of the actual importance of

Watchmen

as a work the armageddon plot is one of the less significant parts. It's punchy when you read it the first time and it makes an interesting point, but it loses a lot of its impact when you know it's coming and the point it makes is kind of obvious. I liked it the first time I read the comic, but it's not the thing I

read the comic for - I reread it because of the character studies.

Put it this way: to my mind, you could swap out the entire armageddon story for some other MacGuffin, and

Watchmen

would still be a great book. But you couldn't lose the character studies without losing the spirit of the work. (It was originally conceived, after all, as a way for Moore to reimagine the various Charlton Comics characters that DC had acquired and introduce them to a modern audience).

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Arthur B

at 14:41 on 2009-03-12Having given the film more thought, I've decided that I'm actually really angry about the soundtrack: whoever picked the songs was the laziest motherfucker in the world, unfailingly picking the most obvious possible choice at any point. "The Times They Are A Changin-'" during an alternate history montage is an example, but I was particularly annoyed by the use of Cohen's "Hallelujah" during a love scene - it's a great song, but hasn't the poor thing been overexposed enough as it is? Let it rest.

The most bizarre aspect of it is that in the scene in question in the comic there's a Billie Holiday track playing in the background they could have happily used, and they'd get to stroke themselves and mutter about how loyal and true they were being to the source material. In fact, there's all sorts of song suggestions in the text which are pretty much ignored, so as well as being obvious, unoriginal, and inappropriate for the period the story is set in, the soundtrack is also incongruous for being the one aspect of the film which isn't striving towards loyalty. It's a small thing but it's really aggravating when you notice it - like if you realise the violinists in a symphony orchestra aren't bothering to play along with everyone else.

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http://fintinobrien.livejournal.com/

at 04:53 on 2009-03-13Point 3: Oh my god, Solid Snake is angry at me!

I like that Hayter talks about the "Snake fans" in the same sentence where he praises "smart" stories. Heehee, Metal Gear Solid is smart now. I must have missed the memo.

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Dan H

at 13:18 on 2009-03-13He's actually talking about Solid Snake from the metal gear series?

To be honest, I couldn't say who *else* he'd be talking about (unless it's the dude from the Simpsons).

To be honest, it was the reference to Rorshach fans that lost me - isn't the whole point of Rorshach that he actually *isn't* cool?

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Arthur B

at 13:23 on 2009-03-13David Hayter is the

English voice for Solid Snake.

Oh look, he's really excited by the idea of making a

Metal Gear Solid

movie! And he wants it made in CGI so he can voice Snake! Suddenly the motives behind his letter become clear...

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Wardog

at 14:52 on 2009-03-13Just when you thought things couldn't get any *worse.*

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Gina Dhawa

at 17:24 on 2009-03-13@10 - I love the thing to bitty pieces and the first time I got to the ending I said "....

wha?

". I think it's a faintly ludicrous plot, but I agree with Arthur that the plot is in fact is deliberately so. Veidt is closer to the superhero mould than anyone else (except Dr Manhattan), he's already "over the top". Not only is he smart enough to be a great traditional supervillain, even his physical feats are set as outstanding in the

Watchmen

universe - that whole thing about actually catching the bullet. This is why I like that they cast Matthew Goode, who looks far too young (not to mention fairly fragile) to be the comic's Adrian, because it brings to life how much larger than life Veidt really is.

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Arthur B

at 18:15 on 2009-03-13Yeah, while Dr Manhattan is the Watchman with the most actual superpowers I think there's a case to be made that Adrian is the closest out of all of them to the superheroes of the Silver Age; he's irritatingly perfect, never really worries about where he's going to get his resources from, pulls cool powers and gadgets out of his arse at a moment's notice and he never, ever, ever doubts himself for a second.

You could almost imagine him having Stan Lee's voice in his head breathlessly narrating all of his actions. DON'T MISS THE NEXT RIP-ROARING INSTALLMENT OF OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS, AS OUR HERCULEAN HIEROPHANT BATTLES THE MUCK-RAKING MILKSOPS AT THE NEW FRONTIERSMAN!

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http://fintinobrien.livejournal.com/

at 04:00 on 2009-03-14

To be honest, it was the reference to Rorshach fans that lost me - isn't the whole point of Rorshach that he actually *isn't* cool?

Considering Hayter's draft for the script had Dreiberg killing Adrian because "it's what Rorschach would have done" I think Hayter missed that point. Actually, the idea that Rorschach is meant to be held up as an inspiration disturbs more than I'd like to go into.

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Wardog

at 10:51 on 2009-03-14God yes - you're absolutely right.

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Arthur B

at 13:10 on 2009-03-14Alan Moore has actually read Hayter's draft of the script - he said it was pretty close to the comic, but he still objected on the grounds that he thinks direct adaptations of comic books are a bad idea on principle. He's also mentioned being worried that Snyder would treat Rorschach as a heroic figure, considering his treatment of

300

; I don't know whether that worry came from reading Hayter's script, but I certainly don't think it would have been alleviated by it.

Still, the actor who plays Rorschach in the film does a good job of coming across as a psychopath, so at least

understands.

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Arthur B

at 11:14 on 2009-03-18So, David Hayter wanted everyone to go see

Watchmen

on the second weekend to make sure the film's earnings didn't collapse.

Well, an

approximately 70% drop

not really what he was hoping for

. Snake won't be pleased.

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Dan H

at 15:17 on 2009-03-18♪♪ It's ... Schaaaa-denfreude. Making the world a better place to beee.... ♪♪

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Arthur B

at 11:11 on 2009-03-25More schadenfreude:

Watchmen

performed

absolutely miserably

in its third weekend, and there's a growing consensus that, whatever its merits, it's a financial dud.

Of course, this means that Zack Snyder won't be able to find work in Hollywood ever ag

WAIT WHAT THE-

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Arthur B

at 16:13 on 2009-04-27Another dose of schadenfreude:

Watchmen

performance in the box office

seems to have been mildly worse than

Batman and Robin

's.

The consensus seems to be it's going to end up making some money on DVD sales, which is a consolation for the studio, but it's not delivered the dizzying return on investment that would have made sinking $100 million into it worthwhile.

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 08:34 on 2009-12-19Charitably? I'm inclined to think whoever picked the soundtrack was trying to call attention to the very soundtrackness of it, to pull the readers out of the scene a little bit. The comic book had the Tales form the Black Freighter overlaying the action providing a similar distance/ironic commentary, and also reminded you you were in a comic by doing tricks with the layout in Manhattan's chapters and elsewhere.

I'm not defending it, I think the soundtrack mostly backfires horribly and comes across and cutesy fourth-wall breaking, but that's my guess as to the intending effect.

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maplestreetsims · 6 years ago

Text

Get to Know Me Tag❁

i was tagged by @whyeverr and @abelsimblr ♥ thank you for tagging me!!

nicknames: Coti, or constance weirdly enough....

gender: female

sign: Cancer🦀

height: tbh i have no idea, but last time i measured myself was 1.52m, idk what that is in inches

time: 18:38pm

birthday: July first! 1/7/00′

favorite bands: one direction ....like, name any modern day band that gets more iconic than that.....apart from them, queen fucking slaps, abba, tear for fears, p!atd...

favorite solo artists: Sufjan Stevens (i love that dude), harry styles, girl in red, dodie, daughter..

song stuck in my head: literally the entire soundtrack of life is strange

last movie I watched: i dont watch movies that often.. but the last one i remember properly sitting down and watching was beetlejuice

last show I watched: i literally cant even remember yikes :/ adventure time maybe,i need to start watching something asap

when did I create this blog: i think i created this blog on july 15 of this year?? i got a new laptop just so i can play the sims so i figured might as well post it so other humans can see it or smtn

what do I post: legacy/story posts, and edits whenever i get creative

what did I last google: creepy font copy and paste (rip) i found it btw Ì̴̬̝̤͎t̴̻̣͇̦͋͜͝͝ ̶̢͈͓̺̘̿̀͌̿͠ẁ̶̰̱̱̙̑̓͋̄̄à̸ͅs̶͖̳͊̈ ̶̹̭̬̹͂̄ţ̴̦͘ḣ̵̢̝̳̠ḯ̸̝̮͙̼́̇s̸̡̬͆̐̒͘ ̴̨͈̮̜̠̭͐́̈́͗ǫ̶̘̌̑̽n̷̢͔̼͖̫̝͑̈́͗̓̇̋ě̸͇̄͑̐

other blogs: at this point i would say this is my main blog, my original blog is so depressing i feel like im back in 2015 whenever i log into that account, it feels very lonely for some reason i dont like it there lmao

do I get asks: i would say they’re mainly wcifds but in dont mind them!, but boy do i love when i get asks about anything to do with my sims or my story, it makes me sooo happy you dont even know :)

why did I choose this url: i suck at originality, so i just picked one of my fav episodes of stranger things, the weirdo on maple street and just added sims to it, bc maplestreet was already taken, what a shocker

following: 1.039

followers: 964 ♥

average hours of sleep: depends on the day.. but i would say like 6-7 hours

lucky number: i never really had one, it always changes but.. i would say 7

instrument: i suck at music big time, last year i literally failed my music class rip, this year not so much thankfully...so idk

what am I wearing: blue leggins with a green with white stripes sweater.... the outfit made sense at one point i promise

dream job: if someone just payed me to play the sims that would be it,but sadly, not happening lol so i would say anything artistic really, being a photographer or an editor, im moderatly good at drawing so maybe that, orrr like working behind the scenes at like movies and stuff?? that sounds cool

favorite food: pizza🍕

last book I read: las cronicas de una muerte anunciada, it was for literature class

3 favorite fandoms: The Sims (kinda), the 1d fandom (we were all so mentally unstable god) anddd maybe the detroit become human? or the life is strange one, can’t decide

I tag: @esperilla @pollinationqueen @hiddenspringss @elisabettasims @retro-plasma and anyone else who wants to do this! :)

#tag game #non-sims

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44dagainagain · 4 years ago

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Supplementary materials for KWLUG LMMS Presentation

I gave a presentation at KWLUG this month about LMMS. Here’s a link to the KWLUG site which embeds the recording: https://kwlug.org/node/1250

This post includes supplementary materials.

First, here’s a link to download the slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r5367PwFZ5y1ZHrW4dJ9Xo-64-xhc22S/view?usp=sharing

Second, here’s an annotated project file for the song that I demonstrated called Lazy Days. This should work with LMMS 1.2.2. I’ve licensed it under CC-BY 4.0, so have fun with it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17fka1JCFu2qTXbBhXLA8zQm_OibTPnU5/view?usp=sharing

Finally, what follows is the text of the script I was reading. It’s not a 1:1 transcription due to ad-libbing and general waffling but it’s pretty close. I refer to the slides a lot so you might want to keep those open in another tab. The scripted portion goes from the start of the presentation to the beginning of the demo...

The Script

Hey so, I’m Michael Hitchens. I’m a Software Developer by day but hobby musician by night. I sing, play the piano and (really, only recently) is when I’ve started to compose. Composition has been one of those areas that bounced off me for a while until, one day, it just clicked. (This was my quarantine hobby btw) So I’m hoping that, if you’re in the same predicament, then this talk can maybe help it click for you too.

Now, while this is a talk primarily about the program LMMS, I do need to cover some groundwork as well, just to get the most out of the program.

What is LMMS?

LMMS is a digital audio workstation (shortened D-A-W, or more commonly pronounced “daw” (like in “dawn”)). The jargon means that this program was designed to assist in making music, in much the same way that CAD programs assist in designing objects.

On the slides I’ve included a link to the docs because, even though they’re a bit out of date in places, they’re actually pretty well written. Most of my demo is based around them.

There’s also this sharing platform. Now, I haven’t used it but it does look cool. Although it also looks relatively unmaintained and, based on the GitHub issues that I’ve read, it might not be the pinnacle of secure database design. Just be warned.

Digital Audio Workstations

If LMMS is a DAW, then no really what is a DAW? DAWs are a lot like non-linear video editors. You can record and produce multiple bits of audio then mix and match and layer and rework and filter all to your heart’s content, and all without leaving the DAW.

The modern DAW is decades in the making. It’s the culmination of music industry tech and secrets. What if I told you that you could have all the power in this room-sized mixer in your laptop? And more? Oh year and this is just a mixer! DAWs are also a synthesizer, a sequencer, a, a rhythm machine, a recorder, an amp, a cabinet? It’s incredible

Now, the history of audio recording at large (which I’ve entirely left out of this presentation because 40 minutes tic toc) is important in-so-far as you realize that DAWs still crib the aesthetic and mimic the functionality of the analogue systems from days of yore. For example, let’s look at these illustrative LMMS screenshots. The mixer on the bottom-left uses sliders but the instrument volume control on the top-left uses knobs. Why? Well because that’s what they look like on a real mixing board. Why do the synthesizer interfaces on the right all use knobs? Because that’s what eurorack synthesizers look like. Understanding these traditions and embracing them can explain some headscratchers. (For the record, this is one of the reasons that DAWs in general bounced off me for a while)

Other modern DAWS include:

Cubase

GarageBand

Logic Pro

Ableton Live

FL Studio

Pro Tools

(my personal favourite) Reaper

There’s probably a bunch of others I’m missing but they’re all similar at this point. You pick one, you learn it, you use it ‘til you die. These are first-rate packages but they’re also inaccessible mainly due to their high price tags. These things cost up to a thousand dollars. (I’m fudging the numbers here a bit for effect, aside from the Apple products there’s a whole bunch of tiering and stuff they do. Like I got Reaper for $60) On top of that, they have an incredibly steep learning curve. That’s not to say LMMS is a cake walk in comparison, but it does get a hell of a lot more complicated.

(For the record, if I had a Mac, I would totally use GarageBand. It’s actually really really good. The interface is easy to understand and the preset synthesizers and drums sound amazing.)

LMMS is a lot like other DAWs but I’ve found that it has several glaring limitations:

There is no mic recording. There’s no way to hit a record button and record a mic directly into LMMS. Every mainstream DAW has this ability and its clearly missing here

You can import and play samples, but they’re hard to manipulate. They feel much more like discrete static objects rather than pools of PCM data that you can mix and match and blend with other samples. Again, every other mainstream DAW does this well

So that’s not to say LMMS isn’t good, you just have to realize what it’s good for:

Synthesized

MIDI-based

Judicious use of samples (e.g. drums)

(slightly) more intuitive interface

Drag ‘n drop, works out of the box

Music Notation and Music Theory

Two more topics before I get to LMMS.

As much as I want to go over the fine details of the harmonic stylings of 18th century dead white dudes, there’s too much to cover in a 40 minute presentation. I will cover a few fundamentals though because it will give us a convenient and widely used way to communicate about a rather abstract idea. But it is gonna be pretty technical and it’s gonna go pretty fast, so strap in.

The classical way of conveying music information is on a staff, shown here, but I’m not going to go into that too much because LMMS doesn’t directly use it. If you want something tailored to music notation, use MuseScore instead.

However, it uses a similar concept called the piano roll, the image on the right. These two images are equivalent.

Music (as it’s valued by our culture) is a collection of notes (labelled here) on two axes: time and pitch. (Think of it like a 2D graph.)

The Y axis consists of notes from a piano arranged from low (bassy, gravelly, earthy, etc) to high (harsh, shrill, piercing). Humans hear from around 20Hz to 20000hz. (The distance between each note is consistently a semitone, you can look this up later). You can describe these notes by their frequency (for example 440hz) but its more common to use note name (for example A4). (Also something to look up later, valid note names are ABCDEFG, then it repeats. It’s modular arithmetic!)

On the X dimension, notes are read over time from left to right. The basic unit of time is a beat, commonly delineated with vertical bars (which I’ve exaggerated in red here). How fast a “beat” is depends on the tempo. This is measured in beats per minute or BPM. 120 BPM is fairly common, which is nice because it neatly divides into 2 beats a second, or 500ms per beat. To stay on beat, musicians use a metronome. The metronome produces a tone each beat which the musician anticipates or reacts to when performing. The duration of the note can be a beat, a fraction of a beat, or multiple beats.

Beats can then be grouped into bars. How many beats per bar is determined by the time signature. Common time, or 4/4 puts 4 beats per bar. Bars can then be grouped into phrases, and phrases grouped into sections and sections can be grouped into songs.

Independent of bars, we can consider other groupings of notes. On the pitch dimension, notes that play simultaneously are called chords or harmony. This is a C major chord.

MIDI

Close to the heart of the modern DAWs is MIDI, the musical instrument digital interface. You’re probably already familiar with it, a lot of retro DOS games have a MIDI soundtrack. The interface describes note pitch and duration, then its up to an interpreter like your old SoundBlaster to figure out how to turn the D4 its being told to play into a signal that goes to your speakers. My musical keyboard (the Casio CTK-3000, don’t buy it) speaks MIDI out, which I can hook up as an input to my computer over USB and use my computer as a synthesizer. More importantly, I can record the notes for later use. For some (like me) this is a more intuitive interface for inputting musical ideas. However, DAWs do typically have a way to input notes using mouse+keyboard, using the piano roll interface.

We use MIDI because it’s compact and easy to manipulate in fine detail, unlike RAW audio from a microphone which is bulky and takes a lot of computation to do the most basic processing (though the tech is getting better just not widely accessible, see the product Melodyne).

I gloss over the spec details because the minutiae of the protocol framing and messaging are really not that important to us. All we really need to know is that it’s the format used to record my piano.

(At this point I switched to a live demo, for which I had no script.)

#lmms #linux #kwlug

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secretradiobrooklyn · 4 years ago

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SECRET RADIO | 10.19.20

Secret Radio | 10.19.20 | Hear it here.

1. Melome Clement & Tout Puissant Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - “Gnon Nu To Min Lin”

One thing that consistently amazes me about this TP music is that it’s like listening to classic oldies

I just read that Melome Clement died right at the end of 2012. I hope that means he lived a long life.

2. Fela Ransome Kuti & His Koola Lobitos - “Wa Dele”

Absolutely awesome footage of Fela Kuti, some from before and after the period of this song. Hell, it opens with a shot of him hugging Ginger Baker. He’s clearly a massively charismatic guy. There’s great footage of the horn players too, and tons of amazing dancing, both onstage and (I think?) backstage. There is also one very bad moment in the footage that is super jarring… but I think on balance the footage gives a huge dose of color to an already colorful song — I know I fell in love with this song long before I saw these shots!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVYqMQ5PKXM

3. Panbers - “Haai”

One side effect of running a music magazine was that music would be sent to us, solicited, unsolicited or otherwise — and I loved it. Part of why I started writing about music was that I loved getting CDs in my literal mailbox. One set that arrived at Eleven before I got there was a beautifully made collection called “Those Shocking Shaking Days: Indonesian Hard, Psychedelic, Progressive Rock and Funk 1970-1978.” It wasn’t the kind of thing I was listening to, or for, at the time, but it made a certain impression. Now I’m amazed at how Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, France and Benin were pumping out great music in 1978 that all seems like they were part of the same scene… but they couldn’t have been. Right? Italians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Estonians, Peruvians — just great music being made all over the planet at the same time. Wow.

4. La Femme - “Welcome America”

This band seems to me like a more modern version of the band Little Rabbits from the ‘90s-‘00s, whose music I totally love. I really like the spoken style of some French pop — like the lyrics aren’t being sung, they’re being announced. I get the impression that this is an indie sort of band in modern French music but not crossed over into the French pop stratosphere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KomjRIqlF7g

A Town Called Panic! soundtrack

If you haven’t seen this movie, we highly recommend it. Don’t even look it up, just pop it in at the top of your queue. It’s really weird and completely rewarding.

5. Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - “Initials B.B.”

This is one of the foxiest songs ever recorded, in my opinion. I mean, she’s beautiful and he’s beautiful for SURE, but also it’s written into the chords and arrangements. It’s so royal.

For the eye makeup if nothing else:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPOYtC1n5bE

Paige adds:

I should note, Chris and Christine when I dedicated this to Bridget, I was only thinking of the chorus “initials, initials, initials, B. B.” Immediately when it started playing, I realized I’d completely forgotten there were verses and that I have no idea what they’re saying. But considering it’s Serge and Bardot, there’s a high chance it might be a song for grown ups. So just the B.B. part is for Bridget.

6. Betti-Betti - “Guikolo”

From Bridget to Brigitte Bardot to another B.B.: Betti-Betti. I love the character and timbre of her voice, and the way the horn hits anticipate the beat — everything seems to be out ahead of the beat, it’s amazing. And this is only a hunch, but I think she does the amazing mouth drumming in the middle of the song. If anyone knows whether that’s actually her doing it, I would love to know. I feel like it happens in several of her songs. It just knocks me out every time.

7. Guided By Voices - “Hot Freaks”

This song will always be deep in the heart of my Seattle self. I feel like this is the moment that Guided By Voices became ineluctable.

8. Techniques Band - “And I Love Her”

So languid, so strangely refracted.

9. L’Oeil - “Bernadette”

This song comes from a collection called “Wizzz: French Psychorama (1966-1971), Vol. 1.” Everyone sounds so locked in together on the groove, the vocals can go off on their own TV comedy scene. I want to know more about this band.

10. William Onyeabor - “Tomorrow”

The rhythm of this song grows so gradually that you don’t even feel it growing ever more complex until the backing vocals start to wind around each other in an ascending ladder of harmony. Meanwhile, the lead vocal just keeps expressing an absolute truth about life: No one knows tomorrow.

11. Marie Lafôret - “A Demain My Darling”

Lijadu Sisters - “Sunshine”

This is such a pretty song in the verses… but then it opens up into an extended instrumental passage built around this perfect little guitar phrase. I assume great hip hop songs have been built around this sample, but I haven’t heard em yet. In headphones the instruments are being slowly panned around the room in different directions, which is pretty great as well.

12. T P Orchestre Poly Rythmo - “A O O Ida”

When I’m digging around for T.P. tracks I haven’t heard, sometimes a song really lands. I make a note, come back to it a few times, realize I’m into it, cue it up and realize that I should have recognized the song from its place on a comp or something I’ve already heard. But they sound so different from copy to copy! The version of “A O O Ida” here is from a recording of the 1976 original pressing. The version I knew but didn’t even recognize is on Analog Africa’s excellent “The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk.” At first I thought they were entirely different takes, but they’re not — just really different EQs and mastering. I love all of Analog Africa’s remasters on all of their amazing, amazing compilations, but in this case I prefer the version here. It sounds so sharp and wild.

13. Teddy Afro - “Mar eske Tuwaf (Fikir Eske Meqabir)”

Teddy Afro must be the biggest entertainer in all of Ethiopia, and he is internationally revered as well. I first heard his music as background music in Ethiopian restaurants, but as I’ve come to explore more music around the world, I find his songs’ production to be really fascinating. He kind of floats over the top of a giant cumulus cloud of orchestral music and telling stories. In this case, he’s relating the story of Seble and Bezabih, the heroes of a famous Ethiopian story called “Love Until the Grave” that I gather doesn’t end well.

14. Salah Ragab - “Black Butterfly”

Josh Weinstein told us about Salah Ragab, and this song makes me feel like I’m living in a cartoon.

15. Giant Sand - “Temptation of Egg”

In Seattle I went to see Grandaddy at the Crocodile, opening for a band I’d heard of but never seen so figured I’d check out. Giant Sand was touring on this album, “Chore of Enchantment,” and I’d never seen anyone play both keys and maracas AND guitar while singing and somehow seem like he was barely doing anything at all. I got the CD but it didn’t seem like the same thing… until the day after I met Paige, when we found ourselves at my place and I pulled out this album. It unfurled like a genie from a bottle.

16. Blonde Redhead - “En Particuleur”

Blonde Redhead was for a long time my absolute favorite band to see live. I think the first time was at Under the Rail, and literally the second she first screamed I burst into surprised tears. The twins looked like one angel and one devil. John Goodmanson worked with them before he worked with Harvey Danger and I was honestly in awe of them. They were also my path into Serge Gainsbourg, for which I will always be thankful.

17. Michel Polnareff - “La Tribù (Hippy Jeeeh!)”

It’s amazing how many layers of reverb this recording is soaking in, which helps keep it super spaced out, along with that synth sound firing straight up out of the atmosphere.

18. Fabio - “Lindo Sonho Delirante”

Another find via Now/Again Records. The original cover for the single featured a photo of Fabio with his arms outstretched, enwrapped in text. The breathless, almost torn quality of the backing vocals is trés classique. Also, another great example of mouth drumming.

19. Os Bongos - “Lena”

*A great find own my quest to find Muxima! I love the guitar tone on this.

20. Avolonto Honore et l’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - “Avi Yaman Houé”

Avolonto Honore belongs to that first group of four — plus of course T.P. Orchestre — from the original “Legends of Benin” that basically makes him a saint in our book. He’s definitely one of the most amazing-looking players among them. This track they’re working is a super deep groove… and then when the horns come in, they sound surprisingly like Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol.” I believe that is Papillon on the guitar as well, another top favorite musician ever.

21. Yuri Morozov - “Neizyasnimoe”

Johnny Fantastic is probably the person we know who knows the most about Russian history and culture. Also American presidents. He is who I want to talk Russian psych and underground music with. So far, I’ve mainly found cool stuff from Estonia, which is plenty exciting, but I feel like there must be a whole Muscovite weird-rock scene that we just haven’t met yet. What do you think, Johnny?

22. Flavien Berger - “La Fête Noire”

Via roundabout paths, this one gets totted up in Julian’s column. Thanks, Julian. This was one of the first batches of songs that Paige heard of French music made after the ’70s, and it clearly stuck. Sometimes she sings along with the ending, which is my favorite. One translated lyric that sticks out is “I leave the comings and goings of the souls / On the other side of the diving board”

Hailu Mergia - “Embuwa Bey Lamitu”

We have been so glad to have “Wede Harer Guzo” in our collection. Every track is a pleasure. Great for working creatively alongside.

23. Ram Jong Vak - “Twist (Dance Twist)”

More Cambodian pop wizardry.

24. Rocky Horror International - “Alltid Lys Hos Frankenstein”

I tried to convince Paige, when we were leaving our art castle on Cherokee, that we couldn’t have Halloween that year, because we were going to be way too busy. She agreed — and then got us tickets for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” the weekend before, which isn’t technically Halloween… and thank god! It was my first live Rocky, and I may not’ve ever done it if I didn’t do it then. Truly a singular experience, there’s nothing like it no matter how hard people try.

Paige adds: The church of Rocky!

25. Arsenal - “Bolero”

Still just reading about this track. One guy wrote in on a track, asking, “Is there any place in Russia where I can still buy this music? I have been searching all over the western planets, but no success so far.” Which made my whole existence feel different. The western planets? How far do you have to go to find a copy of this record?!

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shslocreview-blog · 7 years ago

Text

OC Review! SHSL Urban Dancer Rizumu Daiho!

This talent is kind of exciting for me! I live near a city where street dancing is pretty common, so I see stuff like this pretty often! Do I know anything about it?

...Well, no, not at all. But I’m still excited to tell you all about today’s OC: Rizumu Daiho, the SHSL Urban Dancer!

Under the cut, the original form will be in plain text while my comments will be in bold.

Name: Rizumu Daiho ( 大歩リズム)

Rizumu means “Rhythm” and Daiho means “Big Step” its kind of a joke name to how she discovered her talent by through Dance Dance Revolution. Her name can be shortened to Rizu which is a way of saying “Liz” in Japanese which means “Oath to God”. Mainly focusing on oaths to show not just how she takes honesty seriously and effort to keep promises to heart but also be more expressive in strong emotions since while Rizumu is energetic and high spirited when her mood is right, she chooses a strong emotion such as anger in despair situations. Also, from what I found elsewhere Riz could mean “someone who loves the outdoors” which suits her since her taste in dancing is more outside on streets or cities. Her former surname Itokinuyo is a combination of “Ito" meaning "thread; yarn; string” and Kinuyo which means “generation of silk”. This references her mother’s ancestry of silk farmers that became a famous fashion designer name.

Alrighty, let’s take a look at this--you were pretty thorough, so I’ll be the same way! First of all, I just want to make sure you know Rizumu’s meaning comes from how it’s just the Japanese spelling of the English word Rhythm. It’s a loan word and would be pretty strange as a name, even by Dangan Ronpa standards. You mention later it was picked by her father, so I feel like you could make it, say, his childhood nickname for her. Daiho, on the other hand, checks out in terms of meaning and kanji. It’s not a name I’ve heard personally, but it wouldn’t be out of place in DR.

I think the meaning and reasoning behind rizu/liz is only really relevant if someone calls Rizumu that or she identifies by that name, though the Liz meaning part is correct! I also don’t quite get what experiencing strong emotions has to do with any kind of oath, to God or otherwise. I looked a lot, but I can’t find where Riz means “someone who loves the outdoors” in any language or context.

And finally, to address Itokinuyo… yeah, it looks fine! I think it’s less that Kinuyo means “generation of silk” and more that uses the kanji for both silk and generation, and I’ve only seen it as a first name (of the lady who wrote the Castlevania soundtrack, there’s a fun fact), but neither of those matter too much.

There are other ways of braking her name down through the Japanese Kanji, but its complex. As I said I’m not good at Japanese, but the best I could come up for Rizumu’s name differently is (織図夢) “Ri” for “weave” “Zu” for “Plan” and “Mu” for “Dream” The “Ri” is associated with her family’s name as a fashion designer business but her full name could relate to her taking and controlling her own fate and choosing to pursue her own path instead of her former family’s path.

The kanji works here, too! You mixed Kunyomi and Onyomi readings, but… that’s not too uncommon, even for real-life Japanese names. Like I said before, it’s still an English loan word first even if you give it kanji, but this does lend it some more credibility as a Name rather than a Nickname.

Age: 17

SHSL Title: Urban Dancer (Not Hiyoko’s Traditional Dancing. Urban Dance is: Any of various dances influenced by the rhythms and techniques of funk and hip-hop music, such as locking, popping, or b-boying. Also anything that’s really fast paced like Street, Electro, Break, Club, etc.)

This is all great, though I think something SHSL Street Dancer Flows a bit better. “Street Dancer” is a fairly well-known phrase while “Urban Dancer” isn’t, though, so I might just be a little biased.

Gender: Female (But due to also looking a little masculine and wears tomboy attire, she leaves her gender to speculation or other’s perspective until either free time events or a certain point. She’s one of those girls to judge on who they are rather than gender and she sees it as a bit of a problem with first impressions, so she changes in her dorm.)

So as far as I can tell, she’s a cis girl who doesn’t really present in feminine ways? That’s totally fine, though I’m a little conflicted as to whether she presents androgynously because she feels like presenting as feminine causes people to judge her or she otherwise feels insecure about it, or because she’s just Feelin’ It--both of these are valid reasons, of course, but you might want to be a little clearer about it.

Appearance:

https://goldencat12.deviantart.com/art/Danganronpa-Rizumu-Daiho-Ultimate-Dancer-Intro-671921511 (Urban’s missing due to early development.)

https://goldencat12.deviantart.com/art/Danganronpa-OC-Rizumu-Daiho-670137941

https://goldencat12.deviantart.com/art/Danganronpa-OC-Rizumu-Daiho-Emotion-Sprites-671468163

https://goldencat12.deviantart.com/art/Danganronpa-OC-Rizumu-Daiho-8-bit-sprite-674226556

https://goldencat12.deviantart.com/art/Danganronpa-OC-Rizumu-Daiho-8-bit-sprite-DR1-682750634

She looks great!

Blood Type: B

Height: 5'8 (175 cm)

Weight: 157 lbs (11 stone)

Waist (in): 30 (77cm)

Chest (in): 28 (70cm)

I’m definitely not an expert in this field, but these measurements seem a little… off. For one thing, every sizing chart I’ve seen lists chest/bust as larger than the associated waist size. These also just seem a little small for someone who’s 5’8” and 157 lbs (for reference, Saionji and Koizumi, who are the closest in terms of chest size to Rizumu at 64 and 77 cm respectively, are shorter and lighter than her. Saionji, especially, barely reaches above four feet and looks like a literal child--unless this is what you’re going for with Rizumu, it might be a good idea to adjust these measurements a bit!)

Skin Color: Light skinned pink

Hair Color: Dark blonde

Hair Style: Short, Straight, A little messy with a single platted ponytail, which she keeps under her hat until later on.

On Head: She has a dark pinkish red had cap that’s black on the front with her dance team logo “Graffiti Streakerz”

I really like “Graffiti Streakerz” as a name. It’s English, but like… the kind of English Japanese teenagers would use if they were trying to come up with a cool dance team name, you know?

On Neck: A scar along her neck and her headphones when she’s not using them.

On Torso: Green hoodie jacket that’s darker green almost near the edges

On Arms: She does where fingerless dark pink gloves, but only when she goes dancing or exercises

On Waist: Under her jacket, she wears a black belly top with darkish pink lines but keeps it zipped up until later on

I know what you’re going for here, but consider phrasing it along the lines of “something she keeps zipped up unless she’s around people she’s known for a while.”

On Legs: Light grey slightly baggy pants

On Feet: White and light grey converse trainers with darkish pink shoe laces

Background: Before she became who she was, Rizumu was born to an upper class lifestyle. Her mother’s a famous Fashion Designer that descended from a long line of silk farmers and her father, to where she got her surname from later on.

Quiiiick question: Traditional silk farming in Japan is really uncommon in modern times because it became really unprofitable. Knowing this, did Rizumu’s mother become a famous fashion designer to get away from her family’s non-profiting career, or deliberately to make money so they could carry on their silk farming? It’s a really small thing that isn’t even about the main character of your form, yeah, but I think understanding her mother’s motivations a bit more would help us understand her actions towards Rizumu a bit more clearly, too!

But since her mother’s name carried more weight, she was an Itokinuyo, but she was still called by her first name because it was picked by her father.

See, while this is uncommon in Japan as well, I really don’t mind this fact--it’s still believable enough given everything we know about her family.

She also had an older sister as well, who mainly helped her mother with her business while Rizumu spent time with her dad. Her first time she did a dance was actually with her dad and remembers standing on his feet while he held her hands as they moved to the music.

Awwww! This is really good, cute imagery.

When it came to the wedding of her parents, which was before her little was noticed,

Before Rizumu’s talent was noticed?

something changed. Whether it was a sign or a shocking revelation, she couldn’t recall from all the negativity she heard in her ears. The last thing she recalled was seeing her father running out of the wedding venue and her chasing after him, not wanting to leave him. But being held back by her older sister, she could only watch hopelessly as her father drove off. Any other memory of him was blocked from what came next in the future.

Okay, this is where I’m gonna need some hardcore explanation. What I got from that scene was, “Rizumu and her older sister were attending their parents’ wedding, then something suddenly happened and Rizumu’s father left her mother at the altar, much to Rizumu’s dismay.”

Rizumu and her sister… attended their own parent’s wedding? That would mean they were both born a while before their parents were married. Granted, being born out of wedlock would explain how it was so easy for Rizumu to keep her mother’s surname, but the rate of out-of-wedlock pregnancies is very low in Japan and comes with a huge heap of social stigma. Rizumu’s mother, especially if she was well-known in society, would be facing all sorts of scandal! Which is fine! This is all fine, but it just needs to be explained, or at least addressed, in the backstory.

Secondly, why did her father end up leaving? Remember, this isn’t just a wife he ma or may not love, but a children he supposedly cares about, too. Even if Rizumu isn’t sure at first, you as the writer and we as the audience can know--it would help explain Rizumu’s mother’s reaction a lot more, too.

Her mother was in despair now that her husband to be left her while pregnant

And her mother was pregnant again, too? Geez, what kind of situation was this?

and had to be taken care of by her older sister.

This brings up another question--how old are Rizumu and her sister at this point in time? Between the wedding and this, I’m really confused.

Rizumu wanted to help, but her mother lashed out at her, now calling her Ri instead and for the fact that she looked like her dad. Her older sister even said to her that she was “bad for both of them” so she became more secluded.There are times her mum locked the door of her on purpose before her older sister let her in once her mum was asleep.

Okay, there’s a lot to talk about here, too. I can understand Rizumu’s mother’s bitterness towards her father, but we gotta be on the same page that this has crossed over to child abuse. Targeting one child in particular for harsh treatment is way outside the confines of “despair,” right? Again, I’m not saying this shouldn’t be in Rizumu’s backstory, but it should be addressed and treated as such.

Secondly… why does her older sister treat her that way? Assuming she was old enough to take care of Rizumu, she was old enough to see what happened at the wedding and old enough to comprehend that Rizumu is not the guilty party in any of this. Does she think her mother is acting rationally somehow? Does she honestly think Rizumu is creating this rift in the family?

After her little sister was born she didn’t look like her father like she did, so her mother gained some life back, but when she got older, Rizumu’s grew to be hated by more because she still looked like her dad. It came to the point that her only use for Rizumu was being a “mannequin pin cushion” for men’s clothing.

When her little sister actually interacted with her, they danced the way her dad used to do and gave her a piggyback ride, but it was the only time they shared before her mum turned her against her.

Again, Rizumu’s older sister is just kind of going along with all this? And Rizumu’s mother still harbors all this hatred towards her own child rather than her father? Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly abusive parents who do this, but it might be a good idea to point out the irrationality of these actions.

After some time, her mother took advantage of Rizumu’s love for dancing and forced her into ballet at Chōnadeshiko , a private all girls school she used to go to.

Does Rizumu have a love for dancing? I know you mentioned her dancing on her father’s feet before and doing the same with her little sister--again, imagery that I absolutely adore--but there’s a big step between doing that and enjoying dancing on its own. You’re definitely going to want to talk about Rizumu’s childhood experiences with dancing more. Maybe as a self-taught source of comfort in her terrible family situation?

Despite its perks of improving flexibility, Rizumu hated ballet because of her nickname she was ridiculed for “Twinkle Toes” from moving too quick, even on her feet, to slow music.

I don’t know about how I feel about the nickname itself, but otherwise, I really like this aspect of Rizumu.

But everything changed after going to an arcade after one of her classes and on the day her family went on a trip without her and found DDR. She didn’t get the highest score but she earned a crowd when she began to freestyle her moves, who happened to do a dance different to ballet as a hobby. Since then, she hanged around the streets more often to dance to their music, began to wear casual street clothing and stopped going to ballet.

Okay, I’m a little confused here, too. I got the impression above that Rizumu was placed into an all-girls private high school or middle school for her regular academic studies where ballet was an afterschool class--but is it a ballet academy that doesn’t offer regular studies?

However, when her sisters snitched her, Rizumu was now no longer anything to her mother and siblings and was thrown out, homeless and nowhere to go, which exposed her to the harshness of the streets.

Lots going on here, too, and I have a lot of questions to go along with it!

Why did her sisters snitch on her--for that matter, how did they know what Rizumu was doing? Were they actively looking to get her in trouble?

Why did Rizumu’s mother kick her out? Were her hopes for Rizumu riding on her becoming a successful ballet dancer? I got the impression she only put Rizumu in the school to get her out of the house, so if she’d be out of the house anyways with her urban dancing, why would her mother care either way?

Finally… where did Rizumu go? Did she make any attempts to live with her mother again because she thought an abusive household was better than no household, or was she glad to be out of a terrible situation even if it meant going into an uncertain one? Did she try to couchsurf with people she knew at the arcade? Did she just try to sleep around there? Did she try to reconnect with her father at all, especially during this time?

It came to a drunken brawl between a familiar face who watched her dance that she successfully broke up, but ended up with her neck sliced from a broken bottle. She woke up later in the hospital

Whoa! So she was knocked out or something during this brawl for that long period of time? Were there any negative physical consequences of that besides the scar on her neck?

to her friend from the streets who was the victim and target of the brawl and introduced himself as Shouji Konda. From the moment that scar came to her neck, she took it as a mark of being severed from her past life and began her new life as Rizumu Daiho by taking on her , changing her attire, dropping out of her private school to go to the same school Shouji father’s surnameand another girl she befriended, Hitomi Yoko went to.

Okay, so while I’m not against any of this, a lot of it requires some more explanation.

Who are Shouji and Hitomi? I mean, you introduced them both, but didn’t go into much detail about the impact either of them had on Rizumu’s life--if they’re important enough to be named, they’re probably important enough to have a little bit more information about them, right?

How did she take her father’s name? Did she just start going by it informally, or did she have it changed legally? Did she try to get in contact with her father at this point? For that matter, how does Rizumu feel about her father at this point? Does she idolize him because she’s built him up to be something amazing, or resent him because he basically abandoned her and her family?

Most importantly, I think, how did she get to school? If she dropped out of private school, that implies she was still attending while she was homeless. (How long was she homeless, by the way?) How was she paying for it, if this is the case? Or was she paying in the first place? For that matter, how is she paying for this new school. All high school education in Japan costs money (though some schools are cheaper than others, especially public schools). How did Rizumu afford to go back to school without her family’s financial support. Did she go back after the dance group started making money? Did she get a scholarship (a little bit unlikely from what we know about Rizumu, but not impossible)? Where did she start living after she got back on her feet? Did Shouji and/or Hitomi take her in and start helping her out?

She eventually became something after becoming nothing for so long.

I’ll address this more in my final thoughts, but I think your backstory generally needs a some more explanation and perhaps some cutting back on the more unrealistic elements.

Accomplishments: While getting her life back together, Rizumu and a bunch of teens with a couple of little kids formed The Graffiti Streakerz as a dance posse. Despite not wanting to be seen as a leader and have the group more on teamwork, Rizumu was still seen to others as their leader or “poster peep”

I don’t know if that’s a real or widely-used term but gosh I hope it is.

as she was the most talented. They started off in alleys and streets, which then grew into events, concerts and even world wide tours

This section works just fine for me, but it could definitely benefit from a little detail, too! Was there a point where they were “discovered” by someone who started getting gigs for them? Did Rizumu or another member of the team keep dragging everyone to open auditions until they got them?

Personality: Rizumu is seen to be quite an upbeat energetic person, calling new faces as “peeps” and giving them an optimistic greeting. But she’s not naïve to the point she doesn't fully ignore a situation that’s realistic and asks what would be the catch when put in a situation like the killing game.

I mean, the catch of the killing game is that you kill people, right... ?

Nah, I’m just kidding, I know what you’re talking about. I do really like the “peep” detail you have here, especially if Rizumu became the “Poster Peep” since she spread the expression around the group.

She kicks off conversations by asking whatever they do at night, what hobbies they enjoy or compliments on their attire or physical appearance if she likes what she sees.

This is pretty typical for most people, I think, but this does go to show one unique side of Rizumu: she’s comfortable, even glad to be the one to start the conversation. I think this fits her well as a performing artist!

She is also well to adapt to places having experience in both classes.

The phrasing of this confused me a little (I thought “both classes” was referring to like, the 77th and 78th class or something). I don’t think it’s right to say “both classes,” here since are more than two socioeconomic classes, but you do have a strong case in saying Rizumu has experienced life both impoverished and wealthy (though, she’s spent a much longer time in her upper-class household, as far as I can tell, so you should take that into account too!)

And speaking of classes while she may be seen as a “street rat” to the upper class, Rizumu can be shown to be smart in both street wise and school wise.

I don’t necessarily think this can’t be true, but so far, you haven’t shown me any evidence that is is. As far as “street smarts” go, I’ve seen Rizumu… not die, and I guess she broke up a fight one time, though it did get her seriously injured. As far as “school smarts” go, I haven’t really seen anything. Again, it’s fine if she is smart in these ways, of course, but you’ve got to show us how!

In time, she can think of a fitting nickname for people, which has become a bit of a habit for her which she got from the streets. Only they optionally have a deeper meaning to some.

(For example, Rizumu would call Aoi Asahina “Ducky” like those yellow rubber duckies one may have in the bath. Ducks swim in water, which the element suits her talent. And as it’s the colour yellow it suits her cheeriness. And it’s also from her duck face emotion.)

I have no idea what you’re talking about…

Again, though, another solid little detail! You’ve got a lot of good ones like this.

However her choice of nicknames can sometimes differ to sound mean in negative situations or when she actually gets mad. When in despair situations, she’d be shock like all the others, but would turn to anger as a reaction rather than be sad about it, which she gets rid of all that energy through dancing, either through her own tunes in her headphones or DDR in her room.

Nice, nice, we’re getting some good detail here, namely that she turns to anger to express her negative emotions rather than sadness and that she’s found productive means of releasing said anger.

Patience for her is also an issue. She dislikes silence to the point she has to tap her feet after ten seconds have passed. To her when silence rises, the mind wanders. And Rizumu doesn’t want the silence to take her back to her past.

More good stuff here, though there’s more to patience than just waiting for something to happen in the immediacy, you know? How is Rizumu, for example, in terms of long-term planning or putting up with people beating around the bush rather than facing conflict head-on?

Rizumu doesn’t always understand what heart has in mind. She makes a vow to cut off her past life, yet she still tends to hold onto some kind of memento, whether through physical expression, gesture, photo or item. But she doesn’t look back at any photo’s or items from her former life, unless its with someone she trusts highly, but she also worries about her “chance” leaving the same way her dad did.

Her “chance” being the people who she trusts?

Which is one of the reasons on preferring to be with a group instead of a duo or solo.

I feel like there’s a bit of contradictory, confusing information here, specifically about “keeping a photo” and “not looking back on any photos.” so I’m going to try and sum it up the best I can: Rizumu doesn’t always know how she’ll come to terms with her own past. While she still keeps physical mementos of it, she avoids thinking about it or talking about it unless she’s with someone she trusts.

I’m also glad to see you’re addressing some of her abandonment anxiety! “Being part of a group makes me feel more secure in my place than being part of a duo or by myself” makes a lot of sense and adds a good dimension to Rizumu.

She is quite bitter towards those achieve talent through their heritage and boast about it, but she’ll allow to hear what her enemies and rivals have to say before owning them sassing them out.

So here, you’re equating “people who brag about inherited talent” and “Rizumu’s enemies,” right? It’s fine that you are, of course--they do seem like the kind of people she wouldn’t get along with--but just so you’re aware of that implication!

You know, though, I’d be interested in seeing what other people make of Rizumu and her talent in this regard. While she really got into urban dancing when she was homeless, her mother did pay for expensive (?) private school ballet and pushed her towards dancing. While Rizumu’s situation certainly wasn’t Good by any stretch of the mind, do you think people would bring that up to her? How would she react to other people implying that she only got her talent due to her heritage?

When meeting others, there’s a chance they’ll make her see her worth, accept her and her past and make her feel comfortable about her gender

Her misgivings about her past and discomfort with regard to gender were touched on briefly (though I’d like some more details with most of them too, honestly), but you haven’t mentioned any anxieties about her self-worth. You mention it briefly later in the form, but you’d be best off bringing these up (and explaining them) in the background or earlier in the personality section!

Other Hobbies or Talents: Dancing is pretty much her characterisation, but despite sticking to fast music and dance types and hating ballet, she can have a bit of knowledge on other dance origins. Since coming to the streets, Rizumu had gained experiences in parkour and rollerblading which she got from Shouji Konda. She does go to the arcades often as she can with him and Hitomi Yoko. Her other hobby is Graffiti, which she learned from Hitomi.

So these hobbies seem a little bit like Rizumu stepped out of Jet Set Radio. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a little... archetypical? Stereotypical? Like she’s trying to check all the boxes for “Rebellious Urban Teen.” I’m curious to know whether Rizumu just got into these activities because she likes them, or if she uses them to leverage the image of the Graffiti Streakerz to appeal to other rebellious teens.

I’m also curious about graffiti as a hobby. I’m not sure where Rizumu lives, but I know Tokyo is full of graffiti, and a lot of it carries a political undercurrent--was she into that scene at all? Did she have any messages she wanted to get out?

Rizumu can work with materials like fabric which she got from her family, but keeps quiet on saying it was her work and was something she found. She even created her dance crew’s wear by herself

My mother speaks Spanish and loves woodworking--both of which she does fairly often and both of which I have absolutely no idea how to do. What I’m saying is, you usually don’t learn skills from your parents just by watching them, unless you have some natural predisposition as a child and you’re actively trying to learn. And since the latter doesn’t seem true, and it doesn’t seem like Rizumu’s mother was particularly inclined to teach her any kind of sewing, design, or textile work… It’s kind of hard to believe she has those skills, even with her background!

Also, under that logic she found some perfectly-tailored, aesthetically-accurate uniforms for her entire crew? I’m just curious to know how she went about explaining that!

In a despair setting, would your character kill, or be killed? Despite earning a name for herself, Rizumu degrading from her mother and hate from her sisters makes her question if she’s worthy of it.

That’s terrible, but that’s good! I mean, not good, of course, but it’s important that you bring this up because it’s a realistic consequence of familial abuse and… well, because it’s something you mention Rizumu struggling with. It would be good if you detailed it further, as well: do these anxieties still plague her (as severely) now that it sounds like she has a solid group with her? Does she feel justified anger towards her family for what they did, or does she still harbor a lot of the blame herself?

She saw nothing else other than to dance because that was the only memory that made her happy. Any “chance” she got had to be set aside or thrown away due to her vow to change.

I’m going to be honest, I’m… not quite sure what this means. What does the “chance” refer to--the chance to go back to her family, or to make it so her parents split in the first place? The chance that was referenced above--people she trusts, or who make her feel good about herself?

To this day, she still wants to know where her dad is, but would never go to the extreme such as killing someone to find out.

Well, it’s good to know that, both for the questions’ sake and for some answers about her father. From both this question and the one below it I’m figuring it’s not likely Rizumu would kill anyone, but is there any other reason she’d more likely end up as the victim?

What would happen if your character did kill? If she does become blackened it would be to prevent a second murder or sacrifice herself to be the victim as long as a second doesn’t occur after her so the game would continue, because she wasn’t going to give up on life.

When you say “sacrifice herself to be the victim,” do you mean something along the lines of what Tanaka and Nidai did in chapter four? Even then, that was done in an act of sheer desperation (if those two didn’t die, everyone else would have, unlike every other motive we saw)--so you’re really saying Rizumu wouldn’t likely kill someone. Totally fine, but it might be good to address other motives besides her father. How would she feel if the motive threatened Shouji or Hitomi, or her entire dance crew? Or if a motive would cripple or remove her legs, potentially destroying her dancing career and her only means of escape and survival from her past life? It’s still possible she wouldn’t kill over it, but would those affect her?

“A beating heart is a chance of Hope.”

I don’t dislike this quote, but I just want a little more context behind it--is it something Rizumu would say, a philosophy she follows, something she came to believe in a hypothetical killing game?

However, if she did get her “chance” through this killing life she would do she could to keep them alive. She would even cry because she was the one that was going to disappear out of their life instead of the other way around, but would make them promise to try and keep living

Oh! Okay, okay, I think I get it--this “chance” in quotes refers to someone she can really trust and open up to, and who she feels comfortable around to present as she wants to? That’s great--it makes a lot of sense that Rizumu would strongly attach to someone or a small group of people who really accepted her. That said, you probably want to explain it in a more straightforward manner earlier in the form, because like I said, I’ve been a… little confused.

If your character was found guilty of a murder, what would their execution look like?

Dance, Dance, Rizumu! or Street Rat Dance Trap: Rizumu is centred on a dance floor of pink, blue and yellow (The colours of the steps in Pump It Up), dancing her final dance in front of a lot of Monokumas and the students still living. All was going well until the beat ended. The yellow spots turned sticky, barely movable unless done so slowly. The pink and blue spots were sensors and pressure plates to activate hazards.

Rizumu moved to get to the back of the stage, where the exit lied from the shining of white but the glue traps prevented her from keeping up with the beat and the hazards from the sensors or pressure plates were triggered by the Monokuma crowd booing and throwing things at her as well as Monokuma switching the dance stage’s spots around. Everything seemed to end when her neck wound got reopen by a glass bottle shard and let out a scream which led everything to silence and darkness.

Rizumu was now lying on the stage, her clothes that had remained were torn and wrecked, but she was still alive. She lifted her upper body up slowly to look at where she saw the students, but she can’t move her arms and legs due to the glue or being trapped under the collapsed part of the stage so she could only look up as the spotlight of what is actually a disco ball that hanged on a thread fall on top of her and kill her with Monokuma on top of it holding a pair of scissors and laughing.

I like the idea of this execution, but I feel like you might not have gotten quite what you were picturing into words here--at least, I had a little bit of trouble visualizing it! Was the stage made of a bunch of changing, multicolored tiles, like a fancy dance floor at a club or an RPG puzzle, or was it literally like a Pump it Up/DDR stage, where the tiles showed where Rizumu was supposed to dance? What were the hazards that were triggered--or were they just what the Monokuma crowd was throwing at her? Why did the stage collapse--was that one of the blue/pink tile hazards, or something else?

Again, I like the execution, and her neck wound being reopened is really fitting! I think it just needs a bit more detail and transition so the reader can follow along with it more easily!

(This execution fits in with Rizumu and her talent. The irony to this execution is Rizumu dislikes slow music dances and always danced on stage with a group, no duos or solos. The reason why is connected to her past and that she did dance at a very young age, up until she found her true talent let’s just say there was a lot of standing still in life and moving slow in dance. Dancing was her way of running or fleeing while standing her ground, so she had to dance her way out of her execution. When she stopped or there was no beat to hear, she could only then dwell on past thoughts which leads to her fear of being anchored by her sadness she tried to hold back or convert through dancing.)

While I think the execution, at its best, should be able to explain this through showing without telling, I am glad you included it here!

Other information: Since her heart can throb for either gender from whatever sets her off, Rizumu is bisexual, despite her believing she’s asexual.

Ha, that’s an interesting way to phrase it! One thing, though, is that I think you can be bi and ace at the same time--not to say Rizumu is or isn’t either way, but just keep that in mind!

She used to have a pet crested cockatoo she called Bop that her mother got for decor, since a dog or cat would ruin fabric. However, he didn’t do much until Rizumu stuck on her favourite tunes and began dancing with her. They were true companions, but due to her competitive sisters wanting to play with the bird and her mother living up to be The Damsel of Design eager to finish her work, Rizumu discovered Bop dead in the front garden with his wrecked cage and all his feathers gone to make a hat, so Rizumu had to give him a proper burial.

Okay, so this is a bit of a nitpick, but cockatoo feathers aren’t really used in making hats--even if Rizumu’s mother was desperate, she probably wouldn’t have come up with a great looking product. Also, are you implying her sisters helped kill this bird out of jealousy? Because… yeesh.

Shouji and Hitomi made her feel better by giving a cage Hitomi bought and a cockatoo from Shoji’s house which Rizumu called Jig.

Alright, then, time for some final thoughts!

Like a lot of the DR OCs I review, my biggest suggestion is that you include some more detail. Not that you make the form much longer or pad it out, necessarily, but that you elaborate on and explain some of the concepts you’ve already brought up.

I think my issues with Rizumu’s backstory are clear by the number of questions I ask, right? While I’m not inherently opposed to any of the concepts you bring up (her parent’s wedding, her father leaving, her mother’s and sisters’ abuse, her entry into urban dancing, the people she meets after she becomes homeless), the main problem is… you just kind of bring them up, with no attempt to explain the more unrealistic elements.

Her personality is a little better on this front, especially when it elaborates on topics brought up in the backstory (like Rizumu’s lack of self-worth stemming from her mother’s abuse), but it still suffers from some underdeveloped concepts holding it back--for and example I brought up earlier, you say Rizumu is both book and street smart, and… that’s it. No showing them, no bringing up accomplishments requiring them, no mentioning them later.

Another common trend I noticed over much of the form, though I think it was most noticable at the end of the backstory and during the execution, is that I think you have all of the details and story in mind and don’t quite translate all of those ideas to writing--I only bring it up because that’s something I struggle with a lot when I’m writing. We just have to remember that the reader doesn’t have all of the context and visualization that we, the writer, have come up with. Any interpretation they’re going to do, they have to do only with the words we give them--so we have to make sure to give them enough that they know what’s going on!

I kind of smacked you with my big complaints right out of the gate, but there’s a lot going on with this form that I really do like, too! Like I brought up a few times, you’ll often throw out a small but really good detail: the Grafitti Streakerz, the nicknames, Rizumu dancing on her father’s feet, “Poster Peep.” Little things like that really add to Rizumu’s character and the setting you’re trying to build up for her without sticking too much baggage to the form; I really love those!

Furthermore, even if it’s not always explained in the clearest way, you seem to have a really solid direction in which you want to take Rizumu. Ninety percent of the issues I brought up in the personality and background sections are easily fixed with a bit more explanation and detail, because the skeleton for a well fleshed-out character is very much already here--she just needs, well, some more fleshing out!

#reviews #dangan ronpa oc #dangan ronpa oc review #magentacrystal59 #graffitistreakingurbandancer

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moviemagistrate · 7 years ago

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“Wonder Woman” review

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in being not-particularly-excited for “Wonder Woman”, the latest entry in the DC Extended Universe; after all, I did see the other films in the DCEU. There was the two-and-a-half-hour long trailer “Man of Steel”, the ambitious but notably flawed “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, and “Suicide Squad”, a film that if I were forced to choose between seeing again and taking my own life, I would spend far too long considering. With skepticism in hand, I saw “Wonder Woman”, and I cannot remember the last time I was so happy to be so wrong about a film. This isn’t to say that the movie doesn’t have its own fair share of flaws (it does), but in at least one significant area, which is to inspire hope for the DCEU, it works wonders.

After a brief framing-device setup, the movie tells the origin story of Diana, princess of an isolated island of muscular, Amazonian warrior-babes. In a slow-but-alright prologue, she grows from an eager young girl who is sheltered from combat by her Queen mother to a formidable fighter when suddenly, dashing American soldier Steve Trevor crash lands in their waters. From him, she discovers the ongoing conflict of World War I and sets out alongside him to Europe to help save humanity from what she believes to be the machinations of Ares, the wrathful god of war. Writing it now, this sounds like silly, comic book-y stuff (and it is), but it works within the context of the movie, and the plot isn’t really the reason the movie works as well as it does, anyway.

Let’s talk about Gal Gadot. I was among those who were skeptical when Zack Snyder first cast her as Wonder Woman in BvS, despite his usual excellent penchant for casting his films. A model with acting experience that mainly consisted of “Fast & Furious” movies (not exactly acting showcases) being put in the shoes of the most famous female hero in comic book history has a lot to live up to, and while her limited role in BvS was decent, it didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Such is not the case here in her solo film. Finally given a character with outward personality and depth, she is absolutely phenomenal in what is legitimately one of the best portrayals of a comic book character in any movie. Diana is an idealist, a good-hearted and eager young woman (despite being centuries-old) with no small amount of naiveté and innocence but also someone who is also fiercely strong-willed and independent, and Gadot nails every aspect of her character and every bit of her development throughout the course of the movie, as well as being surprisingly funny. Sure, you could argue that there are probably some actresses out there who could offer some better line-deliveries, but in terms of sheer charisma and how she carries herself and how she makes you believe that she is Wonder Woman, I’d say that Snyder’s mostly-superlative casting record continues. By the end of the film you’ll be convinced that Gal Gadot is a fucking megastar.

The main reason the movie works so well for me is Diana’s relationship with Trevor, played by Chris Pine. A likable, cynical rogue who isn’t too much of a stretch for Pine considering he plays Kirk similarly in the new “Star Trek” films, but a character who is still given enough dimension and gravitas to make him memorable, which the naturally charismatic Pine plays to a tee. Their lack of familiarity with each other’s worlds and their clashes in communication leads to some nice fish-out-of-water humor (see Trevor’s bemusement at the glowing water on the island or Diana’s reaction to her first ice cream), but it’s their chemistry that is the beating heart of this film. The characters’ opposing worldviews supplies the needed character drama, but also helps creates a bond that feels as natural and fresh as any pairing in recent history. Just try watching the boat scene about 30 minutes into the movie without smiling, laughing, or feeling the fireworks these two create. This leads to a bond atypical of most movies, where their deepening relationship is based not on superiority of one over the other, but one of equality and respect, where you actually feel these two grow both individually and together. I might be harping too much on this matter, but this is easily the best romance in any comic book movie (yes, even better than Cap and Bucky). Other film couples have chemistry; these two are cooking Heisenberg-quality meth together and making it look effortless.

The rest of the cast is solid, as well. Of note are Steve’s three buddies who tag along with him and Diana on their mission. They initially seem like the typical diverse comic-relief sidekicks, but are surprisingly well-written and are even given their own moments that flesh out and humanize them more than you’d expect in this kind of film (and I’m always happy to see Scotsman Ewen Bremner onscreen). Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright are alright as Diana’s Amazon queen mother and warrior aunt, but they’re only in the opening third of the movie and spend much of it speaking in stilted “Game of Thrones” dialogue. While the actors who play the villains are good, their actual characters are one of the film’s main weaknesses, somewhat lacking in terms of depth and being interesting. We never really understand why Doctor Poison stoops to creating her devastating weapons of war, and [SPOILERS] the “surprise” late-reveal of Ares can be seen coming a mile away. [END SPOILERS] It’s somewhat ballsy to take a historical figure such as German general Erich Ludendorff and make him the cackling bad guy in your movie (with some unusually accurate attention to detail like his view of war and his pagan Norse worship), and while entertaining, he too suffers from a lack of depth and motivation beyond conquering the world (which again should be noted, is not entirely historically inaccurate).

Patty Jenkins is the first time a woman has directed a major superhero film (not counting Lexi Alexander’s low-budgeted but face-explodingly awesome “Punisher: War Zone”), and she brings a uniquely feminine perspective to Diana’s story, from her upbringing in an all-female society to her learning of the frustrating world of mankind to her loving and compassionate nature. Jenkins has only directed one movie 14 years ago and has only done a handful of TV stuff since then, so her ground as an action director is understandably a bit shaky. The action itself is pretty good, but between the slight over-reliance on Snyder-esque slo-mo and over-editing, you can kind of tell this is Jenkins’ first time doing this sort of thing (not helped by some shockingly crappy CGI). However, she makes up for this by spacing out the action well over the course of the movie, and giving each fight weight, story meaning, and character development for Diana. Along with Rupert Gregson-Williams’ pounding soundtrack, this comes together best in an outstanding mid-movie charge across no man’s land to liberate a Belgian village.

Putting aside the action stuff, Jenkins’ strength lies in the character scenes. The boat scene and others like it feel so natural and well-done because Jenkins knows the importance of slowing a movie down to let us take in the characters and making us care for them. In these scenes, she shows moments of such humanity and personal growth that it really catches you off-guard how moving this film can be. Later in the film, there’s a scene where a character sacrifices themselves and the camera holds on their face for a while, and seeing this person come to terms with their death will both break your heart and take your breath away. Moments like this involve you in a story more than any giant CGI clusterfuck or ironic Marvelquip. Speaking of which, the film itself has a refreshingly good sense of humor, that in deference to modern superhero tradition never feels forced and feels like it’s coming naturally from the characters and their quirks instead of soulless hack writers making pop-culture references.

Despite all that the film does right, it’s not without its flaws. Along with the aforementioned dodgy special effects and the so-so villains, the film also tends to get bogged down in exposition. It has not only the early backstory narration (which at least has context since it’s a story being read to Diana by her mother) and the third-act “villain explains their motivations” monologue, but also fairly frequent occurrences of “newly-introduced character tells us who they are and what the situation is”. It’s still done relatively well, and I prefer it to a movie rushing through just to get to the next studio-mandated action beat, but they could have been more economic with these parts. Also, the third act is a bit of a letdown. Without spoiling much, it disappointingly becomes another huge CG-battle after the baddie monologue, the kind we’ve all seen dozens of times. Maybe some producer or studio exec is hoping that these types of climaxes will one day go full-circle and become exciting again. Finally, the very last shot of the movie is kind of silly; it has no real purpose and is only there because someone out there mistakenly thought it’d look cool.

Nevertheless, I’m writing this review a few days after seeing it, and I’m honestly still shocked at how much I was thrilled, entertained, and even moved by “Wonder Woman”. It’s just so rare for me to find a movie that actually clicks with me on an emotional level that I can easily recommend it despite its relatively-minor foibles. I’m not convinced the DCEU has its shit together as this film could just as likely be an anomaly, but “Wonder Woman” is miraculous solely by giving one the slightest bit of hope that “Justice League” will be good. As long as Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins make another one of these, I might just become optimistic about this franchise. You go, girls.

#wonder woman #film #review

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theseventhhex · 5 years ago

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Earth Interview

Dylan Carlson & Adrienne Davies

Photo by Sean Stout

Over the course of their thirty trips around the sun, Earth has remained diligent in their commitment to monolithic minimalism. With their latest album ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’, Earth purges the layers of auxiliary instrumentation that embellished some of their previous records and deconstructed their dynamic to the core duo of Dylan Carlson on guitar and bass and Adrienne Davies on drums and percussion. In the process, they tapped into the Platonic ideal of Earth - an incarnation of the long running band bolstered by the authority of purpose, where every note and every strike on the drum kit carries the weight of the world. And indeed, anyone that’s followed Earth on their journey will bask in the unadulterated hums, throbs, and reverberations conjured by Carlson and Davies… We talk to the delightful duo about becoming melodically oriented, Germany and downtime…

TSH: How do you feel your creative partnership with Adrienne has evolved in the lead-up to the latest release, ‘Full Upon Her Burning Lips’?

Dylan: I feel like this latest record is our most collaborative effort since the majority of the songs were written in the month leading up to the recording sessions. We mostly wrote this one by getting together and jamming and then managed to remember to record most of it. We basically kept the stuff we liked and when we got to the studio we had a whole bunch of material to choose from.

TSH: Your previous records started out as concept heavy but now it seems like you write a lot faster...

Dylan: Yeah, I think it’s just down to how my musical process is progressing. The songwriting and coming up with riffs is less labour intensive now. I feel like we’ve both improved so much.

Adrienne: Yeah, it just feels like things are a lot more effortless now and it’s almost like we are speaking the same musical language subconsciously.

TSH: For yourself Adrienne, does this record bring to mind a strong feminine energy...

Adrienne: Oh, totally. This record in so many different ways brings to mind a strong feminine energy, for sure.

TSH: Regarding instrumentation, does the idea of having the repetition of a riff with various permeations remain key?

Adrienne: In ways, yes. However, I personally feel like the brackets were off when we made this album and I was not restricted - things just felt very constructive. With previous albums things felt more dense and layered with so many instruments. I really had to play so minimally before and with so much restraint. I learned a lot from previous records but with this album I got to really come out swinging and let my instrumentation have its own voice and be as much a part of the dialogue between the guitar and drums, instead of just framing in the background. My work was much more at the forefront this time around, which was so enjoyable.

TSH: With repetitive music it’s not only a riff or a melody that you would want to hear over and over. You consider numerous other factors...

Dylan: Yes, there are numerous factors coming into play, but recently with Earth things have become less visually oriented and more melodically oriented. I just feel like I’m better at coming up with catchy melodies and riffs. I feel like my playing and my hearing has improved a lot towards phrasing. For me, phrasing is really important because it’s what really separates one from riff from another. I mean you can use the same three notes in a million different ways as long as the phrasing is distinct.

TSH: What are the origins of the track entitled ‘Cats on the Briar’?

Dylan: It’s funny because that song was the oldest song in the bag. We came up with it during Hellfest. The main part with that song was taking the riff and adding the melodic layers to it.

Adrienne: The guitar overdub that’s the last third of the song is so strong. I love that part.

TSH: Does the ‘The Mandrakes Hymn’ bring to mind English folklore and mythology?

Dylan: Yeah, definitely. Also, that song was one of two tracks that was based off themes developed over time for a live soundtrack at the Ghent film festival for the movie Belladonna of Sadness. It was nice to eventually add a couple of bridges and choruses. I feel like that song is a perfect synthesis of English folk and suicide, haha!

Adrienne: That’s the surprise song on the album for me. It ended up being my favourite one on the record. I was pulling for it and Dylan wasn’t a hundred percent convinced about it. It soon became its own beast and I always knew it was a top track.

TSH: Dylan’s fond of and impacted by legendary names like Jimi Hendrix and Robert Fripp. For yourself Adriennne, which musicians have you been impacted by mostly in recent times?

Adrienne: Well, I’ve really been into a lot of Eastern African music lately. I especially like Tinariwen. That genre of music always has a free and flowing feel, it’s always guitar heavy and super-soothing too. I also really like softer and delicate music where you can just hear a pin drop; these kinds of recordings, especially percussion wise are so hard to pull off. Jim White from the Dirty Threes is really good at it and is so impressive.

TSH: Your recent European touring highlights included coming across cats and some stunning architecture...

Dylan: Coming across cats is always fun. Also, after you’ve played a venue a few times you get to know it more and you learn about the city’s history, which is really cool. It’s a lot better than just seeing the backstage area and a van. I recently really enjoyed visiting Aarhus. Bristol is a place I’ve always loved too. It’s the first place that really welcomed us back when we started again. We have a lot of friends in Bristol and playing there is always a high point for us.

TSH: Is the idea of social media making music more undervalued and pervasive still a concern?

Dylan: It’s annoying and it’s something that’s affecting everyone that does creative endeavours. I guess I’m just fortunate that I started doing this long enough ago so that some of the modern technical advancements don’t affect me as much.

Adrienne: It’s super-frustrating but because we’ve been doing this for so long we just adapt and do what we’ve always done.

TSH: Dylan, when you think about your time spent in Germany growing up, which memories come to mind?

Dylan: I really liked the architecture and the castles. Oh, and I loved the smell of the cake shops.

TSH: Do you have non-musical preferences that bring you most peace and joy?

Dylan: I’m pretty single minded, ha! I mainly spend a lot of time playing guitar and practising. However, I do enjoy hanging out with my wife and doing domestic things that most people would think isn’t terribly exciting, ha!

Adrienne: I love nature and getting out and about, especially when the sun is out. I love cats too and I’m an avid reader when I’m on tour.

TSH: What aims are you mostly observant towards as you look ahead?

Dylan: The main goal is to keep doing this and continue having something that is worth hearing and making music people will still want to hear. I would ideally like to do more soundtrack work; that would be my main creative goal. I‘m enjoying where the band is right now, but soundtracking certainly intrigues me. It’s kind of like the Holy Grail when you make instrumental music. I mean this is a tough industry to crack, but I have my fingers crossed.

Earth - “Cats on the Briar”

Full Upon Her Burning Lips

#Interview #Earth #dylan carlson

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williamsjoan · 6 years ago

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DualShockers’ Game of the Year 2018 Staff Lists — Chris’s Top 10

As 2018 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2018 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2018 releases — can be considered.

In a year that I characterize with existential fear and internal anxiety, 2018 is when I figured out that while video games may not save society, they can at least help the individual. “Escapism” is an overused and reductive term, with the games I dug into providing a variety of positive forces: inspiration, awe, contemplation, camaraderie, and so on and so forth. This was also a year where I tried my darndest to play video games just to try to make myself feel happy.

But enough of that sappy stuff. I got some games to talk about, and this might come across as an unusual bunch. Most of this year for me was spent catching up with games from previous years, mainly titles that I waited for Switch ports. Once I was informed that games from any release year were fair game, the list that I already had was suddenly in flux.

First off, let’s pour one out for the titles that made my shortlist, but not my final top ten, including Hollow Knight (Switch), Dead Cells, Sea of Thieves, Wolfenstein II (Switch), Heaven Will Be Mine, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Red Dead Redemption 2: the latter three are games that I wrote pieces for on DualShockers, all which I linked to. Also, I never got a chance to play Florence, The Messenger, Gris, Return of the Obra Dinn, or Donut County as of this writing, and these were all titles I was looking forward to.

To be quite honest, this list, especially the tenth spot, kept changing every few hours. But I had a strict deadline for this, so let’s capture, in time, how I felt about games during this particular hour before I regret everything:

10. A Way Out

Okay, it’s here where I’ll straight up admit that this list is a weird one. I can’t particularly say that A Way Out is an exceptional game, but the experience of playing it was just fascinating. I played the main story with a close friend over two days, and while much of the core gameplay is standard or contrived, I couldn’t help but want to explore the environment and all of the activities that surrounded us. Well, at least after you break out of that prison.

A Way Out inspired the part of me that just wanted to break games. I wanted to see what my limits were, or if positioning our characters in a certain place together would prompt anything, or if there were activities that I can cheat in. While I was disappointed that some of the final missions of the game turned into an Uncharted ripoff with a Scarface vibe, the turn at the end of the game was peak “me trying to break this game.” Boy, was this fun—and the experience was so memorable to me that A Way Out just barely slipped into the list. Congrats, “f*** the Oscars” guy!

Check out the DualShockers review of A Way Out.

9. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

The general narrative around the Call of Duty games seems to be that the series just hasn’t been the same since Modern Warfare 2. There’s a bit of truth to that, but I must admit that I’ve always had a soft spot for Treyarch’s Black Ops subseries. The stories are usually absurd fun, but in terms of new features and gameplay mechanics, Treyarch has been forward-thinking. While I loved Black Ops II, Black Ops III proved to be a massive disappointment. Against my expectations, Treyarch won me back the fourth time.

Obviously, there’s less story here this time around, but the multiplayer is what keeps us all going anyway. I have to admit my surprise about how manual healing subtly changed up the gameplay—it may seem like a small addition, but I felt that I had a bit more agency and control as a result, and it added a small new layer of strategy. Blackout is a blast, and as someone who missed out on the PUBG craze when it first debuted (though I made up for that on PS4), the Call of Duty interpretation of it quickly won me over. Exploring that map also made me realize how weirdly nostalgic I was for World at War and the Black Ops games—maybe a silly thing to have reverence over, but a reverence I hold, regardless.

Check out the DualShockers review of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

8. Fortnite

That new-fangled video game with the floss dancing might be the most basic thing to like in 2018, but gosh darn it, I still fell victim to its charms. With cross-play finally making its way to Fortnite this year across all consoles, this battle royale game became the default multiplayer option amongst my circles. While I’ve never been wild about the gunplay, exploring the evolving map and learning how to utilize building to its fullest potential has been a truly unique and exciting experience.

And speaking of that evolution, I am just floored by how Fortnite’s battle royale mode just keeps adding elements and changing everything up. I was already thrilled when the golf carts were added, but last I saw, you can fly a freaking biplane now. The crazy map events inspire intrigue, and even though there is only one map, the fact that it changes regularly somehow keeps it all fresh. Do I think that it’s lousy that Epic is stealing dance moves? Oh yeah. But will my friends and I keep playing it? Probably. Ugh. Sorry, all.

Check out more of my thoughts in this editorial about Fortnite.

7. Tetris Effect

I’m often thrown the question of how Tetris is able to make me relax when the gameplay is inherently stressful. Still, to this day, I struggle to come up with words to describe that phenomenon. Luckily, Tetris Effect made that much easier to explain—I still don’t use words, but instead, I simply point someone towards some gameplay and ask them to use their eyes and ears. In case you don’t know by now, Tetris Effect is a gorgeous game, and it ended up as one of the most therapeutic experiences I’ve had with any piece of media this year.

It’s a game that just wants to inspire joy and inspiration, using historical and cultural imagery; sometimes its lifting and appropriating, but that’s an entirely different discussion for later. It wants you to admire the feats of humankind throughout millennia, but even if you couldn’t give a damn about humanism, it still sure looks pretty. I greatly appreciate how completing the Journey mode will allow players to simply enjoy the sensory experiences by themselves, because this game can get really difficult at times. Most of all, Tetris Effect affirms my love for adaptive soundtracks, something that you can only really find in games.

Check out the DualShockers review of Tetris Effect.

6. God of War

I can certainly see why the DualShockers staff picked God of War for the top prize this year. I had never touched any of the previous games in the series, and father-son stories are a bit played out at this time, but I rode the wave of PlayStation 4 first-party “prestige” titles, third-person character-focused action games like Uncharted, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and the like. While I completely fell off of Horizon last year, God of War surprisingly entranced me.

The single take camerawork in God of War is a gimmick for sure, but as a big fan of Alfonso Cuarón, I’m a sucker for it. I appreciated a new take on Norse mythology that wasn’t from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for once, and the world was large and interesting without being intimidating. Combat in God of War hasn’t won everyone over, but it was a system that I strived to get better at. Ultimately, I stayed on because of Christopher Judge and Sunny Suljic (who was excellent in Mid90s, by the way). And it doesn’t necessarily need repeating, but God of War looks real, real nice, even on my above average display.

To be real though, it’s all about recalling that Leviathan Axe. That’s a cool-ass feature.

Check out the DualShockers review of God of War.

5. Celeste

Challenging platformers always scare me away. Why do you think I’ve never played Super Meat Boy? I couldn’t tell you how I got over the fence and ended up purchasing Celeste—maybe it was my love for Towerfall or the fact that I wouldn’t stop hearing about how good Lena Raine’s soundtrack was. Regardless, Celeste helped me get over my irrational fear of difficult games.

Here’s the thing about the game: it’s really easy to play! Well, not easy to finish, mind you, but Celeste was more intuitive and inviting than I made it out to be at first. Pretty quickly any frustration I expected was instead replaced with determination. The trial-and-error nature of the game made me think carefully rather than rage like games with consistent deaths usually do. It also helps that Madeline is just a fun protagonist.

Celeste is just a wonderful mix of gameplay, music, and writing, and anyone who doesn’t like it is just not a good person. Got it?

Check out the DualShockers review of Celeste.

4. Night in the Woods (Switch)

There are so few stories that accurately depict the aimlessness of the formative 20s age range, and Night in the Woods is really the only one that I can think of off the top of my head. I won’t get into any self-flagellation here in describing how miserable my own 20s are (I wrote about that elsewhere, if you’re curious), but I will say that the story and art style provided some healing during particularly difficult times in my life this year. The Switch port came just in time for me.

Mae, Gregg, Bea, and Angus are all wonderfully-realized characters; the dynamics and dialogue between them were a delight, and sometimes painfully realistic, from my own social experiences. There’s not too much gameplay to speak of, but I looked forward to each new in-game day to walk around the town and see what the folks I passed by had to say. The story took a real Stephen King-meets-Hot Fuzz turn, and I was down for it. It captures so much truth, and is one of the most authentic pieces of media I know of—and this is one where all the characters are animals.

Check out the DualShockers review of Night in the Woods.

3. Hitman 2

Agent 47, you are one weird dude, and I love you so. As I mentioned in my written review for this website, the “first” Hitman game in 2016 was one that I watched constantly, basically playing it vicariously. With this new game, I graduated to finally, uh, playing it, and almost every moment of it, whether it was a moment of success, failure, or absurdity, has been worth it. Hitman 2, more than any other game this year, is one where if I even think about it, I will have the visceral urge to play it immediately.

I know that I am encouraged to commit these assassinations as smoothly and quietly as possible, but nothing brings me more joy than a contrived plan gone awry. Hitman 2, while very similar to the previous game, added so many fun toys to play with inside its expansive sandboxes. Even with Mission Stories to somewhat guide me, I always found ways to come up with left-field solutions to seemingly simple problems. Stealthily murdering terrible people has never been so much more fun.

Check out the DualShockers review of Hitman 2.

2. Wandersong

I’ve spent the past several months annoying the hell out of everyone I know about this lovely piece of art from Greg Lobanov. Wandersong, in case this is the first time I’m annoying you about it, is a wholesome story-driven game that thematically deconstructs “the hero’s journey.” You play as the Bard, someone without the physical constitution to even pick up a sword, yet is able to use the power of song and vocals to their advantage. It’s a game about a person spreading happiness not only to the game’s world, but to whoever is playing it.

It isn’t too complicated to play, and the song wheel mechanics are a bit finicky at times, but playing through the entire game was such a profound experience for me. Not only did I appreciate its handling of familiar narrative tropes, but I also admired its depiction of mental health and depression. You can tell that Greg and his friends and colleagues put a lot of love into the game’s visuals, sound, writing, and design, and I’m eternally grateful for their work.

Check out the DualShockers review of Wandersong.

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

It’s a tad bit unfair to put Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at the top of my list. Not only did it release so late in the year, but it’s essentially the game of games. I’ve been obsessed with the series since its first iteration on the Nintendo 64, and Ultimate represents such a fantastic evolution of the franchise, and this evolution comes in surprising forms. More so than even its predecessors does it come across more like a celebration to basically every franchise that Nintendo has ever even touched.

I’m not just talking about the Spirits, though those are fun in their own way—the World of Light campaign is long and exhausting, but I remain gleeful every time I see a creative Spirit concept. I’m not just talking about the music, even though the option of creating playlists and basically using your Switch as a music player with its screen turned off is absolutely genius. I just appreciate recent Smash efforts to having characters play like they came out straight from their own games. The trend started with Mega Man in the previous Smash, I feel, but new additions like Simon Belmont and Inkling (from my beloved Splatoon) really take everything further.

I don’t think people talk about this enough, but Smash Bros. is just a great-looking game. It’s a happy medium between the darker look of Brawl and the cartoony colors of the fourth Smash Bros., and I am still in awe by how Ultimate is able to make all of these characters, with totally different designs, aesthetics, and body proportions, look like they all belong together in the same game.

Everyone is here, indeed.

Check out the DualShockers review of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

0. Nickelodeon Kart Racers

Did you know that they misspelled “brake” as “break” in the controls menu? Jeez, what a mess.

Check out the DualShockers review of Nickelodeon Kart Racers.

Check out the other DualShockers’ staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 17: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2018 December 18: Lou Contaldi, Editor in Chief // Logan Moore, Reviews Editor December 19: Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor // Tomas Franzese, News Editor December 20: Scott Meaney, Community Director December 21: Reinhold Hoffmann, Community Manager // Ben Bayliss, Staff Writer December 22: Ben Walker, Staff Writer // Chris Compendio, Staff Writer December 23: Eoghan Murphy, Staff Writer // Grant Huff, Staff Writer December 26: Iyane Agossah, Staff Writer // Jordan Boyd, Staff Writer December 27: Max Roberts, Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Staff Writer December 28: Noah Buttner, Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Staff Writer December 29: Steven Santana, Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer December 30: Travis Verbil, Staff Writer // Zack Potter, Staff Writer

The post DualShockers’ Game of the Year 2018 Staff Lists — Chris’s Top 10 by Chris Compendio appeared first on DualShockers.

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