#Anyway this looks really modern for something posted in 2012 it's one of my favorite blonde submas pieces | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beloved-child-of-the-house · 3 years ago

Text

Fic Writer Questions! (you can find me here on AO3 if you're interested!)

tagged by dear @theburialofstrawberries mwah!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

112 yowza!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

750,421 kinda tempted to go delete one word so it can be 750420 which is a far more Pleasing number

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

12ish but some of them overlap: BBCS/Sherlock Holmes/ACD (these are all different bc my bbcs fics are not the same as my own modern fem Sherlock Holmes adaptation are not the same as my ACD Holmes fic; Good Omens; Harry Potter/The Werewolf Draco Malfoy Cinematic Universe; Captive Prince; The Hobbit; Fleabag (it was a crossover with BBCS but Fleabag is the perspective character so it still counts as a separate fandom imo); Doctor Who; The Office; Parks and Rec; Broad City (one a piece for those last 5 but I AM going to write a Parks and Rec polycule fic for @gaykagome)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They're all Good Omens fics from the 2019 Summer of Good Omens! Susceptible to Summer, Fragments Shored Against My Ruin, Something So Magic, Enter Serpent, and Anything We Like

All of those have over 2k except the last one, but average engagement for me is like 400 kudos or so

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try! It depends on what's going on with me. Sometimes I just don't have the energy, and I figure people would rather I spend my brain power on writing new fics than on writing replies to comments. Wish I had a fave button tho so I could let people know I read and reread comments, because I do!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh I wrote this ficlet series called A Chemical Defect about John and Sherlock's relationship in s3 of BBCS, and it's WILDLY unpopular. People don't read my fic to cry sad tears I guess! John and Sherlock are having an affair in the story, and it ends with the implication that their relationship is unsustainable and that Mary knows about it anyway. I intended to come back to it after s4 and write a more optimistic ending but LOL! Didn't have the heart.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I know this answer is kinda up my own ass, but like. I think stories that feel true to life sort of feel like they end on a beginning if you know what I mean? You don't really consider a chapter of your life closed until you look back on it from the next? SO that said, I think I'd have to say that it's my big BBCS serial The Only One in the World. I spent 2 years writing it, and it ends with John retiring from medicine to solve crimes and write books full time.

Could also be my WDMCU (werewolf Draco Malfoy cinematic universe) series Moonrise, which starts with Draco isolated in his abusive mother's house, trying to cope with lycanthropy essentially alone and ends with him in love and surrounded by found family in a cozy cottage in Hogsmeade, having gotten some lycanthrope rights legislation passed after working at it for years and talking to Harry about whether they want to have kids. Oh man I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written one crossover. It's BBCS/Fleabag, because me and @loudest-subtext-in-tv were laughing about how John seems like one of the horrible guys Fleabag sleeps with basically out of self loathing, so I wrote this fic to make Nattie laugh, and you should read it bc it's so good and so underrated.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, but people don't seem to know that authors can read bookmark tags unless you private the bookmark, and someone once put in the bookmark tag on one of my fics 'writing was meh but it was okay.' Okay so why bookmark it then??

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Fuck yes! I'm not sure what 'what kind?' means? People fucking? Sloppy, silly, and awkward, with lots of laughing. I also really like writing afterglow scenes which are even sillier and gigglier and often involve one character cooking for another. Food as love language is a very distinct pattern of mine tbh

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, but occasionally I'll write a post on here where I make some elaborate head canon, and I'll see people in the tags talking about how they want to write fic of it, and it makes me breathe fire out of my nose like a dragon like PLEASE DON'T. The WDMCU came out of a ficlet post I made on here like a year before I actually wrote the 60k series so like!!! Please don't do that!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! To Russian and I believe Chinese. Not my entire oeuvre but a handful of BBCS and Good Omens fics

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I wrote a fic inspired by an RP I did with my gf right around when we met (actually now that I think about it, it's two fics), and I waaaaaaanna do a WDMCU collab with my beloved Sally @clytemenestras at some point if he has time bc he inspired me to even write werewolf draco with his original lesbian werewolf story

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

favorites are hard for me? I always think I'm currently doing my best writing lol so I'll say drarry

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don't post fics unless theyre finished, so I don't have any WIP up on AO3, but I did intend to continue with my fem Sherlock Holmes series, Your Many Tendencies. I just haven't been in a Holmes mood for a long time. Maybe I'll come back to it idk. This particular series is honestly very unpopular? People will just straight up say they don't read femslash, and it hurts a lot. This series feels really personal too, bc it's about a Black autistic nonbinary lesbian, so it does hurt my feelings that no one seems to care, yknow? I mean the people who read it are extremely kind and thoughtful in their engagement with it, but it has vastly less engagement than my m/m fic, and that's painful. It gets literally 1/10 the attention my fics usually get.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Almost all of my writing is romance, but I tend to write concurrently about recovery and found family, and I think I'm very good at doing that in a way that connects with my audience. I once had someone ask if they could use my words in their wedding vows, and I've had people tell me they started doing things with their spouse that my characters do with their partners in order to express love. I think about that all the time. My Impact. It makes me feel like I have a real duty to my audience yknow?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

This question is hard for me like I've been writing so long and so much that I'm literally always happy with my final draft! It's always exactly to my taste, yknow? I suppose I could say that my fics tend not to be terribly plotty but so WHAT? That's beside the fuckn point for me. Plot who? I don't know Her. Also honestly like. Stories feel more True to me when they aren't ruthlessly devoted to plot bc like life isn't like that yknow?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If you're not fluent in that language, get a beta who is!!!!! That said, I have written scraps of very simple dialogue in French using mostly Google Translate (sometimes I check w Sally bc he speaks French but I am usually too impatient), and I am perfectly well aware that I take my life in my hands each time!!! Also don't do that bullshit thing where it's in italics? That shit is weird and exoticizing. Just write it in quotation marks like normal dialogue.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

BBCS babey back in 2012. Ended a 5 year dry spell for me after I got my writing degree.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmmmm I think it's probably gonna be the fic I'm working on now that I haven't posted yet, but I know it's called Names for a House, and here's a tiny bit of it

Thanks again Shreya for asking me to do this bc I really love talking about myself. I tag @the-moon-loves-the-sea, @clytemenestras, @tomiano, @gaykagome and @totallysilvergirl

No pressure <3

#sherlock stuff #ask games #apliddell #if y'all wanna send me asks about names for a house #or anything else i mentioned here #they would be welcome

12 notes · View notes

redsector-a · 3 years ago

Text

AO3 Ask Game

I was tagged by @themarshalstale which, thank you so much! I feel like I always get missed on these (I know why, it’s been 84 years since I published anything but still). 1. How many works do you have on ao3?

46 it seems. Which...look I’m slow man so that’s not surprising. lol Also crippling depression does not make for much production, at least for me.

2. What’s your current AO3 wordcount?

309662 according to the stats.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

So do I could only AO3 or in like life? lol I suppose it should only be on AO3 since this is an AO3 ask game. Hrm. Basically AO3 can be summed up as: Marvel (in several iterations - all Avengers related) Torchwood Highlander But isn’t it more fun to consider my entire fandom life, which, I’m sorry, I’m old so...yeah. Not all of this is was published and beyond that a lot is not available anymore...which is likely for the best. Highlander Star Wars Babylon 5 Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers Marvel (again, several iterations also of note Avengers and X-Men both count) Torchwood Star Trek LOTR Stargate (SG-1, SGA) Mortal Kombat I dabbled with the idea of Potter fic but never got past the ideas stage.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1: You rearrange me till I’m sane Clint finds himself spiraling into a deep depression after the Battle of New York...until the Winter Soldier ends up saving him and inadvertently giving him a new purpose – to save the man that the Soldier had once been – Bucky Barnes. Not one to be outdone, the Soldier decides that his new mission is to ensure that Clint remains alive himself. Protecting a blonde man with a self-destructive streak is somehow very familiar to him. Through the back and forth of who is saving whom they cross the country and learn more about themselves and each other – and perhaps find a reason for living. 2: Five Dates Bucky Didn’t Realize He Was on And the One He Planned Himself To say that Bucky was surprised when Clint kissed him was an understatement. But it was nothing compared to the shock he felt when he learned they'd been dating for months without him realizing it.Clint gets whisked away for a mission before they have time to talk and Bucky is left to figure things out on his own - hindsight being 20/20 he can't help but wonder how he missed things the first go around.

3: Puck Luck Bucky Barnes is used to the ups and downs of an NHL season. He's used to the unpredictability of the game, knows that bounces don't always go your way, but that doesn't make a broken hand in the final third of the season any easier to deal with. Especially not when he ends up with an impromptu roommate/personal assistant in the form of one Clint Barton - his agent, Natalia Romanova's (rather attractive) friend he hadn't known existed before his injury.

It's just for six to eight weeks - what could possibly happen in that span of time?

4: Loose Lips Launch Ships

Based on the following prompt: “We go to school together and I think you’re cute and apparently you’re also the pizza delivery guy and my little sibling opened the door screaming hey sibling! you know that kid you’re in love with? you really weren’t kidding when you said his jawline could cut steel holy shit-” Bucky is the pizza delivery guy. Clint's younger (foster) brother has a big mouth.

5: Indelible Bucky Barnes has a pretty decent life – a good job, good friends, a cat that adores him - but something is missing. He’s always found body art to be beautiful and inspiring, and on a whim (and with the hope that maybe he can find what he’s missing) he decides to take the plunge and get a tattoo. That's how he meets Clint Barton. Clint's talented and compassionate and there is an instant spark between the two of them. It's not long before Bucky finds himself wondering and wanting more from the relationship despite the ghosts of the past that crop back up. Because Clint makes him feel normal in a way he truly hasn't for years...

(this was pre-Alpine so I was totally chuffed when canon confirmed Bucky’s status as a crazy cat lady (affectionate).

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not.

I really really really want to do it but I often times don’t end up doing it. There are a few reasons. First, I am akwward AF and bad at interaction adn I feel like just saying thank you would be...not enough? Second - I often times tend to like...turtle (aka retreat into myself) when life gets Too Hard/Busy which happens a lot to me (sigh) and then I miss the vague window in my mind in which it would be okay to respond and then it’s even more weird. I do love and cherish all of them. Like there was one months ago that made me go “hmm...I didn’t think I was going to do a sequel to that fic (You rearrange me till I’m sane), timestamp glimpses sure but a sequel hadn’t come to mind” but then the comment made me think! So...who knows? lol Anyway, I literally have been rereading some in an effort to try and get myself going again. Know that if you have commented, I love you.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

At the moment? Probably: Look at you look at me Bucky's in love with Clint - problem is he's really not supposed to be. For Winterhawk Week 2019 - Forbidden Love (I really don’t want to give away the spin in the fic but...if you’re familiar with the Secret Avengers Vol 2 run circa 2013ish (aka when SHIELD initially ‘took control of the team’) that’s a bit of a hint as to the spin). Were it done, Torch Song would be up there. ;) Torch Song Clint is sent back in time, via an alien device, to 1938. While he tries to figure out how to get back home, he takes up singing and entertaining to make ends meet and does his best to not disrupt the timeline.Then he meets a 21 year old Bucky Barnes. --- A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship.

7. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Does *wanting* to write crossovers count? lol I want, so badly, to do more crossovers and fusions (which...are kinda deeper versions of crossovers in a way). The only one I do have posted is a crossover between Highlander and Torchwood -

The Immortal Mr. Jones A series of vignettes (some long, some short) in the life of the newly immortal Ianto Jones. My most ambitions project that I have been working on since late 2011/early 2012 is a fusion of the Avengers with Stephen King’s the Stand. I will get that done at some point *shakes fist* The Stand, for those who don’t know it, is an epic 1000+ page novel about a flu epidemic (I know) that wipes out over 99% of the population and then two figures representing Good and Evil pull the survivors in two directions for a showdown. So basically it’s a non-powered modern AU set in that universe. It’s a passion and comfort project. lol

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. Well, minor bitching back when I was in a prior fandom because I tagged a pairing in a fic but it was pre-slash and not labeled as pre-slash. I got hate on...I think it was Torch Song? And I’ve gotten hate on tumblr re me and my fic in general as well. Fandom! *jazz hands* Oh! And I’ve also been hit by those reviewers within Winterhawk (among general Clint pairings actually) who like rate you on either number scales or the “meh” scale. Which isn’t hate exactly but...it’s passive aggressive bullshit because I can’t believe none of them realize at this point that the authors can see their bookmarks - you know?

9. Do you write smut?

Yes. Do I write it well? I have no idea. lol

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of. Well...there was, I think, one of those reposting sites that had a few fics on it but I don’t think it was being passed off as someone else’s? I can’t quite recall. It’s why I have a note on AO3 about reposting my work anyway.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not entirely, but sort of. Let me explain - I am part of a PBEM game; which for those unfamiliar since it’s a term that was most heavily in use 15-20 years ago, in which you basically do a round robin type writing thing but rather than everyone writing the same characters you write your own characters and you play off what other people have done. Another way of looking at it is it’s basically DnD without dice and written down rather than done out loud. You also don’t have to all be around at the same time. It’s a lot of fun and yes I have been in it for 20 years even though there aren’t many of us left but they are some of my dearest friends and fabulous writers. Wins all around. One of the other writers and I have actually toyed with the idea of doing a co-written fic actually, mostly because we work super well together and keep getting ideas for things but can’t really do them as rpgs since the pbem style isn’t used much anymore.

12. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Winterhawk probably. Though, let’s be real - Han & Leia are epic and amazing as are John & Delenn (from Babylon 5).

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Does wanting to expand The Black Stallion books as a wee child count? lol Not much of that was written save for world building ideas but there was a great oral tradition of telling stories to my friends. Otherwise...maybe a tie between Star Wars and Highlander. Star Wars was a love since I was super young but the writing bug didn’t hit me until around the same time Highlander was a thing as well.

14. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? You rearrange me till I’m sane for sure. Though Torch Song, if it were finished, would be tied I imagine (I suck at picking favorites). Honorable mention to Puck Luck and Indelible. Tagging: I have seen this like a million times (okay 5) so I feel like everyone has been tagged already that I know. But...I guess... @vexbatch @crazycatt71 @heartonfirewrites and @disruptedvice sorry if anyone has been tagged before.

#icyredfics #writing #winterhawk #long post

18 notes · View notes

edisacornball · 3 years ago

Text

You know what, I watched Moriah Elizabeth's yearly wrap-up where she ranks everything she made that year and explains why and just. It just looks like so much fun, to take everything you've made in a year, pit them against one another, see how your opinions may have changed since you first made them, and just... line them up.

(Yeah, I was one of those kids who played by putting all their stuffed animals in a line. And now I'm doing it with my own fics. I can't be stopped.)

But anyway. Let's do this!

My 2021 Fics, Ranked!

(from least to most favorite)

27. Living in Color — Eh. I was trying to power through a lack of inspiration, but I also desperately wanted the dopamine of posting something, lol. Just kind of feels like a mash of half-baked ideas.

26. Imagine When We Met — It's cute, I guess? To be honest, cute little shippy things just aren't my jam. I was trying it for Edwin week and just coming off Former Alchemist's Guide, but... Yeah, it was me experimenting, and I learned what I needed to learn from it.

25. Secondhand Yesterdays — I really like it, but I'm still kind of frustrated I couldn't hack a way to turn it into a full story, more like 2k instead of less than 200 words.

24. Broken Things — I think this one had more meaning to it than Imagine When We Met, but a lot of the same things apply to this one. Still, I'm glad I finally wrote something about Ed still having his right arm giving him trouble.

23. To the Parental Unit — This was a really important fic for me to write. I really needed to say it at least to myself, but I don't know if it added much to the story.

22. Beautiful Ghosts — I really liked the concept of this, I love being able to read things that add a new dimension to events we've already seen, but... I didn't super enjoy writing it. I wanted to move ahead, not rehash stuff I'd already written.

21. It's Not My Fault! — I still read this and smile, I think it's fun and good for what it is, absolutely. I just tend to favor the fics that ripped my heart out at least a little bit.

20. Becoming Bruno — I definitely like this one and it was fun to actually stretch outside of my usual fandom, but... Yeah, it's not the most fun to put minimal effort into something and get waaaaay more kudos than usual just because it's current and mainstream, heh.

19. How to Turn Gold into Lead — I like this one a lot, I really like how it shows some of me practicing making characters say something without them or the exposition saying it. But I wish it went a little longer so it could get a bit more in-depth.

18. Detached — I really like how this one flows, it's very emotional. Kind of reminds me of back when I was just starting out and wrote Lost Brother. But I had no idea where I was going, so it's a bit of a hot mess and I don't know what I want to do with it.

17. What I Learned on the Road — I especially like this one because I know how far it's come. I mean, this thing started as an unfinished draft from 2012, and I still managed to take it and completely rewrite it so it actually reflects my current skill. And some of the tips are even genuinely useful (I hope)!

16. The Light We Let In — Ack, this one's just a joy to write. It's not my deepest work, but sometimes you just need some fluffy goodness about Ed being a dad. I don't entirely like that it's my one set one oneshots in one story, but... I didn't want a million oneshots to take over the series otherwise, either.

15. I Am Your Way Home, You Are My New Path — Okay, this one is pretty funny. I'm a little desensitized to it because it's been my headcanon for, like, a decade, but I love that I actually got around to writing it.

14. Just Alphonse — This is just one of those fics that I reread for myself every now and then because it's just... comfy. I dunno. It reminds me of my LGBT family and when I first started playing with gender expression, and seeing Ed and Al having a chance to be happy in modern times is just nice.

13. It Started With a Stomachache — I'm kind of proud of writing a closer Al POV than usual with this one. It was a bit more work than usual because it was just out of my comfort zone, but I think it was worth it. Could be a little more subtle, though.

12. Inconvenience and Pimples — Admittedly, I didn't think much of it when I wrote it at first. It was just one of those inspired pieces where I got the idea and sat down and knocked it out immediately, in one sitting. After a few rereads, it's grown on me. I think it explores some interesting stuff for a character study.

11. Delicate, Petite & Other Things I'll Never Be — It's hard not to be attached to things that I write when my heart is being absolutely ripped apart. There's just this raw energy to this fic that I really like. I really feel like I captured a lot of what being a trans man means to me.

10. Mirror Man — I can't fully explain why I like this one, but I just... like it. I'm a sucker for anything CoS-related, I swear. But something about the unfamiliar familiarity in this one just hits hard.

9. The Lost Years — Agh, I already have such a soft spot for anything from the You've Become a Meme series, but I especially love the depth and feelings this one added to the series. I'm mostly just frustrated because I kind of keep imagining this becoming a multiple chapter / long fic thing, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

8. A Former Alchemist's Guide to Dating — Holy crap, this one took me by surprise. I thought this one wasn't going to be more than 10k at the absolute worst, and it ended up being three times that. It came out of me so quickly, and it was just such a fun rush to post it every week and see everyone excited about the shenanigans. And referring to baguettes as "long bread" has also just become the standard in our house now. The amount of people who have told me that this is just canon as far as they're concerned... I love how it turned out, and I love that everyone else loves it too.

7. Sehnsucht — This one was a test of my writing! I had to try and figure out how to write German for it, and then as if that wasn't enough, I also tried to task me with imitating the style of Capra/Marelle. I don't think it really got close enough to read as the same style as SirryGray, but... I'm proud I managed what I did with this one.

6. The Grief That Does Not Speak — It only barely missed the top five! It's honestly a really hard choice between this one and Last Few Steps. I think this one ended up ever so slightly lower just because it's a little shorter, which makes less for me to pick apart. I do like all the little bits of worldbuilding in this one, but it does feel a little more... static.

5. The Last Few Steps (You Must Take Alone) — This one just has such a fond spot in my heart. Anything with Ed and Trisha interacting just sqooshes my heart so bad. And I got a lot of reflection in with this one while also looking at the characters a little differently than I'm used to.

4. The Other Side — Agh, my baby. I'm so sorry you didn't get finished this summer like I hoped. I love working on this one so much, but trying to switch between BH and Shamballa lore and having that many little bits... It's more work than I initially gave it credit for. I feel like I always have a million tabs open on 1920s Germany when I'm working on this.

3. Labyrinth of Shadows — Because Aurora. This one gets ranked this high just because I freaking love writing Aurora so much. I love writing the relationship between her and her dad, I love the single-dad college-professor vibes Ed's got, I love all the world and plot building I did for it, I loved being part of a big event, I love the art that went with this... I love what I'm plotting for the sequel... I just don't want to let go of writing about Aurora. I know people loving their OCs is... Well, whatever it is, but I don't care. I love her so much.

2. Dark Enough — This one took so long to try writing and rewriting and rewriting before I felt like I'd finally managed to get the feeling across and that it was worth posting. And then posting it brought about a whole new wave of fear. It still feels like it could be improved, but I feel like it was really important for me to write, and it's really touching to see people saying that it was important for them to read as well. It's maybe not my most skilled writing, but it's some of my most authentic writing.

1. Complimentary Colors — Honestly, I can hardly even believe I wrote this one. It's dark and chilling and has parallels pointed out in this way that feels so natural to the story, and the shift in tone right towards the end is so jarring, and it just fits in canon, and... Yeah. It was so painful to write, and I'm so glad it paid off that well.

Overall, it was a good year of writing. I made a lot of things I'm pretty proud of. And even the things I'm not proud of taught me something important. And ranking all my fics for the year was kind of eye-opening, so if this makes you want to do it for the things you wrote, I highly encourage it. I have a lot better idea now of what makes me really love a piece of my writing even long after I've finished it.

#long post #fanfiction #writing #i made this #oof i'm sorry i rambled that much #i did NOT mean to I swear #ao3 wrapped

4 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years ago

Text

1278

Social Media Survey

[joybucket]

What is your favorite social media site? Either Twitter or YouTube, though I never use YouTube as a social media site per se so I guess this round goes to Twitter.

Do you use...

facebook? myspace? twitter? snapchat? instagram? youtube? pinterest? bzoink? another site with message boards? tumblr? deviantart? xanga?

Facebook

Do you get on Facebook every day? Yeah pretty much all throughout the day. I used to never use it, like never ever; but back in college all announcements were coursed through Facebook so I was technically required to be on it regularly, and it was from there that I began to see memes and start to be more active. I’m a shitposter more than anything though and I rarely ever post stuff of my own. How many FB friends do you have? I have 679 at the moment but I want to get rid of like 500 of them; it’s just such a long list to go through so I never get to proceed with my unfriending spree lol.

Have you ever been on a deleting spree? HAHA I just mentioned that. I’ve always wanted to, but like I said 679 is already such an exhaustive list for me, and that’s considering I only started touching my Facebook in like 2019. I can’t imagine people who started Facebook in like 2009 and have 4000 friends aka most people I know.

Have you blocked a lot of haters? I don’t have haters; at least I’m not aware of any that I have. Not that it’s something I care about at this point.

Do you get bullied online a lot? No, but that’s also because I don’t really open the channels for people to send in hate. I don’t have Q&A handles like Curious Cat and I never pick out that option in Instagram where people can send in questions.

What's your favorite Facebook app? Oh I never use Facebook for their apps. Are those still even a thing...? Anyway, I mainly go there to be on the hunt for stupid memes I can reshare or to watch videos that are either funny or informative.

Are you a fan of selfies? I don’t mind if other people do it, but I think I’m honestly bad at selfies so I almost never take them. I’ve never figured out my angles or what filters look ok on me.

Has anyone ever called the police on you because they didn't like your status? No but I have had my posts reported because they were deemed ‘offensive.’ Which is weird because my posts that have been taken down are those that speak out against disgusting men, which says a lot about Facebook runs their shit more than anything else.

Are you in any facebook groups? I’m in nearly a hundred groups, both private i.e. for school purposes, and public.

Are you the admin of any groups? Nah. Too much time and effort needed out of me.

Do you report abuse to group admins whenever you see it? Yes. I report the post then leave the group.

What could make Facebook better? They could put more effort into detecting and banning troll farms.

What year did you start using Facebook? I made an account in 2012 because of a high school class that required us to upload this specific video-format homework onto Facebook (which in hindsight is such an insensitive homework considering that was nearly a decade ago when the Philippines was still severely behind in internet connection speeds?? Ugh). But I didn’t start actively using my account until around two years ago.

What is your current profile picture of? Myself, posing in front of the sunflowers in school during the recent graduation season.

Did you like the old Myspace better than Facebook? I was never a regular user of Myspace, so...

What are some of your favorite boards? I’ve never had a clue what the purpose of Pinterest was. I mean I have an account...but I’ve also never gotten the hang of it?? so I never touch it hahaha.

Have you ever done a craft you saw on Pinterest? Well no, because I’m terrible at arts and crafts anyway.

Do you have a Dream Wedding board? If so, what's on it? No.

If you have a Dream House board, what does your dream house look like? Ok fine this one I did start hahahah but I don’t even remember what I added on there anymore. I’m sure it was filled with modern-style houses with minimalist interior design.

Do you wish they'd bring the "like" button back? I’m not even aware of this option.

Do you have a Bucket List board? Not aware of this either.

Which do you like better: Just Girly Things or And That's Who I Am? The second one sounds less childish. < Same, and it sounds like it covers more.

Do you have a board for tattoos you like? If so, what are some of your faves? No. The only one I ever made was the house one, then Pinterest quickly became boring from there when I realized there wasn’t much else I could do besides making mood boards.

Do you have a "Random" or "Miscellaneous" board? No.

Have you ever reached the maximum number of boards? No.

Do you have any secret boards? No.

Have you ever had a Pin deleted because of copyright laws? No.

Do you have a Color board? No.

Do you have an About Me board? If so, what's on it? No.

YouTube

Do you have a YouTube channel? If so, what is it? Technically I do but I only have it so I can tailor video suggestions to my interests and so that I can like videos and subscribe to channels I like.

What kind of things do you post on YouTube? I’ve never posted any video on there, not even private ones. I’m also not the type to comment.

What do you like to watch on YouTube? These days YouTube serves as a stress reliever for me, which is to say I would typically go for humorous BTS-related compilations because there are sooooo many hilarious channels that make these great videos haha. Occasionally I’d go back to channels or series that I used to frequent, like Good Mythical Morning, Buzzfeed’s Worth It and Unsolved, Try Guys, Watcher, etc.

Are you subscribed to any channels? To so many.

Do you watch any vlogs? If so, what ones are your favorite? Hm probably Jiwoo’s, though her channel is called Mejiwoo. I find her content calming and conversational and basically fun to binge-watch when I’m not looking for anything super super particular to watch.

If you have a channel, how many subscribers do you have? 0. I’m just a lurker.

Will you subscribe to my channel? (msg me if you want a link!) Only if it’s really fit to my interests, I guess.

Do you watch music videos? Rarely; not a fan of MVs in particular. I only really ever put an exception for BTS.

Have you ever watched a TV show on youtube? Well no since their copyright team works hard and works fast lol. I do watch entire video game walkthroughs from time to time.

Have you ever worked out to exercise videos on youtube? No, I can’t care less about working out tbh.

Have you watched Amanda Todd's famous video? No. I’m scared that it might be too upsetting or triggering for me.

Have you ever looked up how to do something on YouTube? Not really, I prefer looking up articles that can teach me step by step in words.

Do you get a lot of hate comments on youtube? No, I’ve never posted anything on there.

How long have you been a youtuber? Never been.

Instagram

Do you post on Instagram a lot? I do 1-3 Instagram stories in a week, I would say. As for posts, I only have 4 in total and I don’t really feel the pressure to add more. I just post when I feel the want to.

Have you ever posted a poll on instagram? Nah, I’m not too sure if anyone would participate so I’ve never tried. If you don't have an iPhone, do you wish you could use Instagram? I’m pretty sure other operating systems can also use Instagram...

Do you have any followers? Around 50, I think.

Do you like Instagram filters? I’ll use them sometimes to make my stories appear prettier.

Twitter

Do you think twitter is stupid? Hehe show me at least one person who doesn’t think so. < Coming from someone who regularly uses Twitter, agree. It is crazy stupid but stupid is what I’m there for. Which is honestly not always such a bad thing to me - I like that people are more themselves, more stripped-down, vulnerable on Twitter. People always seem to want to show off their best selves on Facebook and Instagram, so I’m actually kind of grateful that there is at least one social media out there where people can just be their clumsy, goofy selves.

How often do you tweet? Probably a maximum of five a day. Nowadays I’m on there mostly to just scroll through my timelines.

Do you get on twitter every day? Yes, both on my personal and fan account.

Bzoink

Do you make a lot of surveys? I never make them but I try to take them as often as I can.

Do you take a lot of surveys? Haha sorry, was one step ahead of you. Yeah, I do.

Do you post in the message boards? Nah. I dunno if I’m even permitted to check the message boards on Bzoink considering I don’t have an account.

What types of surveys are your favorite? Categorized surveys like this one or countdown ones can be fun, but at the end of the day I like sticking to the classic random survey.

Do you have friends on here? Not on Bzoink, but here on Tumblr yes! There’s a number of people here I like keeping up with :)

Do you post all your secrets on here? Again, not on Bzoink; but yep I share pretty much everything here.

What type of survey do you think I should make next? Anything but basic/about me-themed ones that will ask for my name and eye color and weight.

Do you read peoples' answers to your surveys? I’ve never made a survey.

Do you think you are good at making surveys?

Do you try to make unique surveys?

What type of surveys do you want to see more of?

Random

This or That

Scattergories

Have You Ever

Are you like me?

About You

Personal, Deep Questions

Girly

Music shuffle

Would You Rather

Do you have this in your bedroom?

Long

Short

All About Your Crush

Fashion

Make-up

School

Music

Your health

Your friends

Confessions

Girl Confessions - how different is this from just confessions? Hahaha

R-Rated

Controversial topics

Myspace

Did you have a myspace when you were in high school? I started an account in like 4th grade when Myspace was ~big, but I didn’t find it fun and everyone my age was on Friendster anyway, so I was largely inactive.

Do you use myspace now? No. Is it still even around? I have no clue.

Do you miss bulletins? I didn’t get to join in on the fun so there’s nothing to miss.

Did you like customizing your profile with the old myspace? Not attributed to Myspace but I did have a lot of fun customizing my Multiply and Tumblr accounts back in the day. That was a period where I really got to learn and play around with HTML :)

Did you have music on your profile? Not on Myspace again but I did on Multiply! I had a cute little playlist that played the songs immediately as soon as you landed on my page hahaha.

Did you learn HTML when you used Myspace? Tumblr, yeah. I believe the skills are still there but I’ll definitely be a bit rusty.

Did you have a customized cursor? Oh, no. Wasn’t a fan of those as I found them a bit tacky.

Did you use glitter graphics? Also found those tacky haha no, I never used those.

Do you remember posting glitter graphics on friends' pages? Nope.

Did you make "dolls"? I don’t recall ever making those.

Did you use photo captions? Not sure what this is referring to so let’s just say no.

Did you have a photo slideshow on your profile? Hmmm nope, I don’t think so.

Xanga

Did you have a Xanga account back in the day? No. It wasn’t big here so I had never heard of it until I started taking surveys on here and heard people mentioning Xanga, actually.

Do you have a xanga account now? No.

Did you post photos and quotes on your xanga page? I never had any.

Snapchat

Do you use snapchat? I did; I was superrrrr active on there for a time. It kind of just got old at one point, though, and my feed got more and more dead until I too just left my account dormant altogether.

What is your favorite filter? There were a lot of cute ones on there that helped me be more confident with taking selfies but my favorites have to be the dog and flower crown ones.

Tumblr

Do you understand Tumblr? I had a better handle of it when I ran a fan account that required me to be more active; but now that I really just go on here to take surveys I just use the basic functions and nothing more. But yeah, I understand just enough to get by.

Do you use Tumblr? Yeah. Even on the days I don’t post surveys, I regularly go on here to keep up with friends I like keeping up with like Elisabeth, Lane, Steph, Lina, Julie :)

Other

What forum sites did you use to love that aren't around anymore? There was one message board I frequented for this girly/tween magazine I used to collect, but I won’t share the name.

Are there any other great social media sites that you recommend? I think this survey was able to cover all the main ones I use.

Do you use a photo editing site? If so, what? I use apps instead of sites to edit my photos.

Do you ever use BeFunky.com? Nope.

Do you use a video editing site? If so, what? Nah, I rarely have to edit videos in a super intricate, detailed way. Apple’s video editing features suffice for me.

Have you ever downloaded fonts? Very occasionally since it’s never necessary.

Have you ever used photobucket to upload an image? No but I remember going on there back in the day to look for images. I never uploaded any, though.

Do you use iTunes? Not anymore. I have an account on Spotify now.

Do you listen to music on Pandora? No, never used it.

#surveys #survey

1 note · View note

sharkwing · 4 years ago

Note

why do you like tmnt so much! im rlly interested cause you post so much about it and the style looks really pretty, but i wanted to hear about it some more!

Ooh you’ve opened the floodgates now!!! The answer for tmnt in general is that I LOVE modern day action adventure stuff, and most incarnations of tmnt scratch that itch in a way that balances lighthearted fun and meaty plot stuff really well. But Rise of the TMNT is my favorite, no contest, so I’m gonna talk specifically about that.

For context, the first version of TMNT I watched was the 2012 cgi cartoon. I like that version, it’s super nostalgic for me. But if TMNT 2012 is say, MCU Spiderman, Rise of the TMNT is it’s Into the Spiderverse. If you’re already a fan, it plays with the lore in really fun ways, and isn’t afraid to play with new spins on established characters (ex: one of the most popular side characters, who’s usually one of April’s love interests, is female in Rise!). If you’re NOT already a fan, it has gorgeous animation, endearing characters, fantastic writing, and a really cool aesthetic.

There’s also a shift from mostly straight Sci-Fi to Science Fantasy with the heavy involvement of creatures called Yokai. Yokai have been present before, but this time they’re front and center from the start—in Rise, a Yokai named Baron Draxum wants to wipe out humanity, who he believes to be a threat to his kind, by using alchemy to mutate humans into Yokai themselves. (Three guesses as to how the turtles came to be in this version.) The humans that get mutated are also handled really well. Most of them are villains, but unlike TMNT 2012, Rise...actually gives a shit about them? They appear often, are developed fairly well, and there’s some really nice subtle and environmental storytelling about how they’re all dealing with their mutation in different ways. Some of their lives are ruined, some of them straight up don’t care and go about business as usual, and for others it’s a mixed bag. New York is a weird place, and most of the regular human characters are just as weird and interesting as all the mutants and ninjas and stuff. It’s fun and dynamic, and honestly? Some of them look way better as mutants anyway (lookin at you, Hypnopotamus).

What really pulls me in is the characters. I love the boys in pretty much any incarnation, but like I said, Rise isn’t afraid to try new things with established characters. Leonardo (the blue one) is normally the oldest and the leader, and that’s...pretty much it for most versions of Leo. Rise shifted leadership and the oldest bro position to Raphael (the red one, hotheaded fighter). Not only do we get to see a new side of Raph, I’m not exaggerating when I say that now that Leo has room to breathe, this is the most personality he’s EVER had. Pretty much all the boys are extremely well developed and each have individual relationships with *each other* beyond being a team of heroes, something that’s missing from a lot of other incarnations.

Imo, the best change is the one that probably put the most old fans off of the show initially: Splinter, the turtles wise but distant father and sensei, is now...kind of a dirtbag, initially? In his first few appearances, he doesn’t do much aside from laze around in front of the TV. He doesn’t even seem to remember his son’s names. But the emphasis of this show is Character Development with a capital C-D, and by the end of its (unfortunately abbreviated) run he’s kind of the coolest version of Splinter there is, not to mention the best dad.

Unfortunately Rise of the TMNT was recently “paused” by Nickelodeon, and the crew was given six weeks to write a four episode finale to conclude the current storyline. For all intents and purposes, it’s been cancelled and is unlikely to return. This was apparently due to “a change in leadership with different priorities” rather than any fault on the show’s part, which is very frustrating. But! There’s a Rise of the TMNT movie in the works at Netflix, and some fans are hoping that they’ll pick it up for a series continuation. Idk how likely this is, but Netflix already streams Rise in Canada, and stranger things have happened. And even if Rise doesn’t return, I highly recommend giving it or even the 2012 version a watch! If you liked teen titans you’ll probably like 2012. Tmnt has a lil something for everyone, and I hope ya check it out!

#LONG POST IM SORRY #rottmnt #anon #tmnt #shark.txt #ask

7 notes · View notes

parf-fan · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! I'm going to the faire in fifteen days (I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED) and I was wondering what shows there are not to miss this year? I already know I'll be at all of the jousts, queen's court, and finale, but was wondering if there are any other shows that I shouldn't miss?

AAAAAAAAAAA I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU TO BE BACK!!

First off, I suggest going both days of the weekend if you’re able. In order to thin out attendance at any given show, they’ve structured the schedule so that most super cool performances are competing with some other super cool performance. For example, Disasterpiece is at the same time as one of the two in-house music groups this year. Likewise, Teatime is at the same time as the other in-house music group. All four of these acts are right before a Joust, meaning that you will have to leave one early in order to get to the other on time, or risk being late for the other.

My personal recommendations? Well, as you said, Queen’s Court is a must. And be sure to get there in time for the whole thing, pre-show and all, because to be quite frank, the pre-show is generally more entertaining than the main show, or at the least as entertaining. I don’t believe that there is anything resembling Boons and Favours this year, so there’s not even anything competing with it.

Just after Queen’s Court is the Gaming Joust, which is an innocent joust in which nothing goes wrong (as far as I know), and is thus not a plot show, which is something to be aware of.

I am notorious for caring very little about out-of-house acts at PARF as compared to in-house acts, with a few exceptions. The archetype of this exception, Rowan and the Rose, is not present this season. However, the other duo of which Rowan Thorn (Arthur Rowan, head writer) is a part, Two Bard Party, is, in fact, there this season. Now, I don’t know whether you’re going the weekend of the 10th and 11th, or the 17th and 18th, because I wasn’t looking at my askbox often enough to be able to tell when this arrived. If you’re going the 17th and 18th, you may be out of luck as far as Two Bard Party goes, as that is the one weekend they are listed on the website as not being present. But the Daily Writ for that weekend does list them, so plans might have changes and website not updated, which would be on-brand. Regardless, I recommend this group most highly. Geeky folk music at its finest. Rowan in particular has an incredible knack for writing songs about very specific things in specific stories and telling them so well and with such good music (often courtesy of the group’s other member, Randal Piper) that one does not need to know a damn thing about the subject of the song to be completely blown away by it. If they’re present your weekend, super duper mcfreaking recommend.

Whose Jest Is It Anyway was my favorite non-plot show back in 2012 and 2013, and I never quite forgave them for getting rid of it (well, the real issue was the lack of an improv-track show through which to get to know those characters, and that was solved with the introduction of Disasterpiece, but the point still stands). But now it’s back! It’s a half hour of short-form improv, somewhat filtered through characters, and it’s just a lot of fun.

For something quiet and small, Mags Cockburn at the picnic grove is lovely.

I definitely enjoy the music of the out-of-house group Wine and Alchemy, and my mom enjoys it even more, but their fusion world music doesn’t seem to be for everyone. Or maybe the masses just don’t care about music in languages they can’t understand.

Judging by the timing of your move from PA, the show you’re likely least familiar with is probably Disasterpiece, although that’s surely not giving you and your youtube-watching enough credit. If you haven’t watched any previous Disasterpieces, here’s a handy playlist of all the ones that made it on the magical Tube of You. It’s the spiritual successor to Rumple’s tragic backstories, taking a modern story that’s at least moderately well known and adapting it for a half-hour slot in Faire-style telling, but with an added element of everything going wrong. This is the show that, starting in 2018, fixed the issue of a lack of shows through which to gain an understanding of the improv track characters. In 2019, it also had an overarching plot throughout the season, which was SO COOL, but of course the individual performances could still be appreciated as one-offs. There’s an overarching plot this year, too, and videos of these shows can be found on the parf-fan facebook (because I haven’t gotten to cross-posting them on here yet, and I’m not putting ‘em on youtube until my previous years are all up because I will NOT be mucking about with chronology and organization in such a manner on that platform). Really super duper hecking recommend.

At the same time as Disasterpiece is Mags to Rich’s, the in-house asterisk group this year. It’s a duo, and if you’ve ever enjoyed an in-house asterisk group recently, you’re sure to enjoy this. I’ve only seen them once, because same time as Disasterpiece, but I wish I were able to see it more. If I were able to go more than one day a weekend, I would. Jules and Leigh Ann are so good.

Variety Royale is the Chess stand-in, and a good show for witnessing interaction between the characters. It’s an in-universe competition between a bunch of out-of-house acts, largely non-musical, and the lineup changes weekly. It’s enjoyable, though I do usually feel a little nervous about proximity, as there’s little else going on at the time to thin out the patrons.

Teatime is a MUST. It’s Sir William Pickering as portrayed by Jonathan Handley and Sir Walter Roderick Kensington as portrayed by Alex Stompoly sitting on Swashbuckler stage throwing shade and talking shit for thirty minutes. It is GLORIOUS, it is HILARIOUS, it GIVES ME LIFE, and I love them so much.

At the same time is Music With Her Majesty, the other in-house music group. I have not yet attended this show, more’s the pity, because Teatime is different every week, and I want to film it as much as possible. But I know the group is wonderful, for two reasons. Once, they’ve performed at Finale in Pub Song a couple times, and have been excellent. Two, they’re a in-house music group at PARF, which means the OF COURSE they’re excellent and highly enjoyable, that’s how that works!

Ultimate Joust is also a little nerve-wracking as far as proximity goes, and I’ve thus only attended twice. I’d very much like to go a little more, though, because it is Absolutely Necessary to the plot and character stuff this year, but in a completely different way than is usually is. I’m not saying anything else, but you really do have to experience it.

And of course, the closing show, which I have been calling Finale in Pub Song, which has not been catching on which is some serious bullshit because hello it’s perfect. As my name for it indicates, it is a blend of the Pub Sing (which I have never experienced personally before, as it takes place at the same time as Ultimate Joust, and I’ll wager you’ve never experienced it either for the same reason, so here’s a channel the content of which is approximately half Pub Song) and Finale in Song. It is not the traditional Finale as we know it, with a host(s) from the cast and an overarching theme or conflict (NOT THAT THERE WAS AN OVERARCHING THEME OR CONFLICT AT ALL EVER IN 2019 FOR SOME UNFATHOMABLE GODFORSAKEN REASON WTF) that changes every week. Rather, it is hosted by the Musicians of the Shire, and closely resembles Pub Sing, but does have a few non-music out-of-house acts, and sometimes an in-house music group, too. I do like traditional Finales as we think of them more that this, but this makes sense for the season, and is certainly enjoyable.

Pro tip, after Finale in Pub Song ends, just hang around in the audience are a for a while until the exiting crowd thins. Otherwise, six feet will be utterly impossible.

If you let me know specifically which day you’re attending (probs via messaging), I can tell you what I’ll be wearing and you can come say hi to me if you want. I would love that! You’re the only other Faire youtuber who seems to care about main season plot, and your videos have filled an important and specific niche, and I appreciate them so much, and also ur tumblr is cool.

#it a query!#parf 2020

3 notes · View notes

slade-neko · 5 years ago

Text

My History with The Sims

I don’t typically like to talk about personal things here, but I felt the need to write this up for myself to remember my journey through the Sims games. I thought I’d go ahead and post it publicly if anyone was curious or wanted to read it. This might get a bit lengthy, so I’ll keep it all under a “keep reading” note.

First off, I just wanted to say, I personally never saw myself as a “simblr.” I created a tumblr a long time ago to post about things I like; video games, anime, and music. The Sims games just happen to be a series of video games that I like to play a lot, so I post about it. I’m not really into the whole Sims community thing. I’m honestly prefer to keep to myself and do my own thing.

I never played a Sims game as a kid. I don’t even know if I knew what they were until one weekend while my best friend from school (still best friend today) was staying over and had brought his laptop with The Sims 3 on it and was wanting to show me the game. This was sometime after The Sims 3 launched in 2009, I was in 8th grade (maybe?) Anyways, point is we made ourselves as sims and played around in the game. My brother and I are huge fans of games where you can create characters in and I thought it was so funny seeing all the wacky stuff you could do in it and control these little characters’ lives in this game. At the time I didn’t have a PC remotely good enough to play modern PC games, so getting the game was out of the question for me. Eventually I got it on its console release in 2010. Oh the console Sims 3... it was different. My brother and I adored it for what it was, but we weren’t idiots. We could tell how different the game was on its limited console counterpart. It was not the same game as the PC version. The PC version of Sims 3 was always something I wanted, but never knew when I’d get it.

Towards the end of 2010 I got my first “gaming PC.” Predominately to play games like Half-Life 2, Garry’s Mod, and Fallout: New Vegas (with mods.)

It wasn’t until December of 2012 when I got Sims 3 with its Supernatural Expansion after watching Anthony and Ian from Smosh play it during one of their Lunchtime with Smosh videos. I was like, “Oh! Sims 3, I remember that game. I should get it and play it now that I have a PC!”

This was it! I finally had Sims 3 on PC and it finally set in. My brother and I went crazy over this game it was so much fun! We started by making ourselves and closest friends as sims and eventually began making sims of our favorite characters. This was huge for us. With all the control Sims 3 had to offer it was like making the perfect world filled with all our favorite people and characters. We created video game characters like Mario, Luigi, the Left 4 Dead survivors, and then anime and cartoon characters, and then even real life people like funny Youtubers like Smosh. Some of them were pretty bad looking... but my brother and I didn’t care. To us, they were the characters living out their crazy lives in this virtual world surrounded by all these other characters. I always made the comparison that it was like some big ultimate fan fiction, but actually being able to live it out.

As time went on, we continued playing and nurturing our Sims 3 game. I began downloading CC for our sims game. I’d browse CC and find something that looked closer to a character’s design and think “Ooo, this would be perfect for so-and-so!” We also got better and better at making sims’ faces and improving upon their designs. Our sims were constantly metamorphosing into newer and better versions of themselves. My brother and I had put so much time and work into them it became our hobby and it was very rewarding to see them improve with all the time and effort we would put into them. I was so proud of our sims I made a DeviantART profile, so I could post and share pictures of the characters my brother and I had created in Sims. Originally I was nervous posting pictures of our sims online, but I was filled with joy when I began getting nice comments from people complimenting them and such positive feedback from others. I was so happy with my sims and having other people tell me they were good too just felt very rewarding to me. I had begun to make it a habit to upload pictures of the sims I had made and it was a fun thing for me to do. My sims and pictures were honestly pretty bad looking back, but at the time I really enjoyed them.

I got the point where I needed more for my sims, so I learned how to do some modding. This was probably around mid 2013 when I began learning little things at first like texture edits on clothing. Some time into 2014 I started making bigger things like meshes. They weren’t really good, but they were something. This was a big step in the direction I was wanting for myself and my creations. It really opened my eyes to the endless possibilities and offered me so much freedom. No longer was I bound to the laws of “I’ll have to use whatever I can find.” I was able to improve so many of my sims with mods I could create myself.

We spent about 2 and half years playing Sims 3 then in 2014 Sims 4 launched. I was ecstatic to have a new Sims game! I had loved TS3 so much and was looking forward to everything Sims 4 had to offer. The game came out, we played it, we made ourselves and immediate best friends as a household, and it was FUN. We really did enjoy it, but we came to the conclusion it was lacking so much compared to TS3. We knew we were comparing a basegame Sims 4 to a fully fleshed out all DLC Sims 3. I remember trying to recreate characters in Sims 4, but not being completely happy with them. Sims 4 was a new game and I had no clue how to mod it like I did Sims 3. We actually ended up going back to Sims 3 for some time. It was at a point where we would ping-pong between the games. I remember Sims 4 being new and interesting, but I think I fell back to Sims 3 because it just had so much. All of my sims and their content were there still while Sims 4 was all new.

Going back to Sims 3 was like a return to form. It felt good to see all my sims I worked so hard on and I continued to work on them even though Sims 4 was a thing. I would still play Sims 4 some when new DLC came out and play around in the game a bit, but all my serious sim making and pictures came from Sims 3. Playing both games I learned a lot about sim making, modeling, and just the games in general. It wasn’t until early 2016 I finally felt like I had hit my apex in Sims 3. I could create sims to the best of my ability at the time and was satisfied with my work. It was around this time I decided to make a tumblr and I began posting some of my last Sims 3 pictures I ever took.

Then in 2017 I learned how to mod Sims 4. This was a BIG game changer for me. I could finally start making all my sims over again and they wouldn’t be out shined by their Sims 3 counterparts. I would complete a sim and be so happy with the result. My Sims 4 game was finally on par if not better than my Sims 3 sims. I wanted my sims to use more content I created and not have to rely on others. My brother and I played and made so many characters in Sims 4 since then. We really focused on honing our craft. Our sims went through rigorous polishing over the next years. We’d be happy with our sims, leave the game for a few weeks, come back think our sims look bad, edit them up and make them better, and repeat. It was a never ending cycle really. We had this big strive for our sims characters to be perfect. Our goal was for a character to look like they came straight out of their own universe into The Sims. To this day, my brother and I have amassed more than 600 sims in our game total. A feat we are both very proud of.

#personal #The Sims

16 notes · View notes

meta-squash · 5 years ago

Text

A ramble on Dallas Theater Center Les Miserables

So, 5 years late, I jumped back on the bandwagon and finally watched a bootleg of Dallas Theater Center’s 2014 production of Les Miserables.

And wow. I can’t believe I waited 5 damn years to watch it. So here’s a long rambling write up on it based on the live-tweeting I was doing as I watched (and a little bit on me skipping through the bootleg video right now). It’s partly just me summarizing scenes so I can nerd out about the little details I loved and towards the end me talking about the show as a whole and why it was so fucking important.

First of all I wanna say that I'm surprised it took this long for a professional theater company to do a "modern day" Les Mis. I know all the fans fucking love their Modern AUs fics, I've been reading them since like 2012 and I love them. But also I'm SO glad someone finally did it because Les Miserables' themes are universal and they are amazing but they're also really relevant to what's going on today, or 5 years ago (since it's only gotten fucking worse tbh).

My first big impression was how great the costuming was. You can tell the socioeconomic class of the characters just from what they’re wearing, from how they posture and interact with others. Which is easy when it’s period costuming, you just make everyone look dirty and ripped up vs not dirty, but this (aside from the Thenardiers) is a little more subtle.

Also re: the costuming, I absolutely LOVE that they modernized Javert’s costume into a cop’s uniform but managed to retain the classic Javert Silhouette by giving him that trenchcoat, so we still get the expected Inspector Javert Silhouette despite the fact that he’s a modern day cop. Also all of the other cops/soldiers being straight up SWAT was an excellent decision, not only because it shows the sheer violence of a police that isn’t supposed to necessarily be SWAT, but also because the helmets completely cover their heads, so when the soldiers sing lines, they don’t even sound human. Yet another layer.

Nehal Joshi as Valjean was great. Honestly the moment I keep thinking about is actually from the very beginning, just after Valjean is released. Joshi looks so happy, delighted, like his heart is light again. He smiles as he sings “ Drink from the pool / How clean the taste” while looking up into the sky like he’s amazed at being in the open air. Then suddenly his posture changes completely, becomes guarded and hard, his expression gets closed off, and he sings “Never forget the years, the waste” before thumbing at his nose in that tough way and grabbing his bag off the ground. It was an emphasis on a pair of lines that I’ve never seen properly emphasized before. Usually the emphasis is on the next lines, when Valjean is saying “Now let’s see / what this new world has in store for me”. But here they emphasize that despite being free, he has traumas he has to deal with, and experiences that mean he’s wary of the world. It makes his theft of the silver make a lot more sense; it’s not just opportunistic, it’s also that he straight up doesn’t trust anybody.

(Another note on costumes: Valjean’s post-prison costume is his orange jumpsuit with this weird ratty, torn up sweater thing over it. I do very much wish they’d given him a hoodie that was equally as ratty instead of a sweater because I feel like that would’ve been another interesting layer of commentary.)

Two notes I made specifically about this production’s Soliloquy: This production had Valjean rip his prison papers accidentally, while he’s in the middle of an emotional gesture, then he stares at the rip in disbelief, and comes to the realization that he could just rip it up, and so he does. I thought that was a very cool mechanic. The audience literally watches him get the idea of changing who he is. Also, when he sings “I am reaching, but I fall / And the night is closing in” he actually wraps the rope of his bag around his own neck, like he’s considering death, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. I thought it was really interesting considering those are the lines that directly mirror/parallel Javert’s Suicide.

This production also has all the Bad People roles played by white people, which is just fantastic. The foreman, Javert, all the cops, etc etc. I thought it was an excellent decision, since all of the main characters (minus the revolutionaries) are POC.

Fantine was amazing, has an incredible voice, and her I Dreamed A Dream sounded genuinely miserable, almost frantic with the fact that not only is she a single mother struggling to pay for her child who’s living with some other family, she now has nowhere to turn for money at all, and she’s completely alone. I think she’s my favorite Fantine of any of the ones I saw.

And Lovely Ladies absolutely blew me away. This was the first Lovely Ladies I’ve ever seen that felt Real. Not just that there was sex going on (because there was, there’s people fucking and getting blowjobs etc in the background the entire time), but it doesn’t feel like something silly or shallow. The entire thing feels desperate and exploitative and miserable and painful. Most of the other characters are dressed in provocative, revealing clothes. But there are a few in just jeans and t-shirts, looking desperate and kind of bedraggled. And then you have Fantine, who is literally just in a slip and long socks, looking out of place and terrified.

The usual Lovely Ladies shenanigans do ensue, but there’s a tinge of horribleness to it that is sharper than in the traditional show. In the traditional show, the moment where the music suddenly slows, and all the women sing “Lovely ladies / Going for a song / Got a lot of callers / But they never stay for long”, it usually feels like kind of a weird and unprompted moment of introspection after so much ruckus, but in this version the reason everyone slows down is because the pimp plucks their cash out of each of their hands one by one. And then the horribleness is increased tenfold because all of the women are in a line with men behind them simulating sex, and Fantine is in the center, bent double, the Captain behind her, staring down the audience. With each thrust she grits her words out like she’s in pain in every way imaginable. And the Captain ‘finishes’ just as she hits the line “dead!” Which is just. A lot. But so good. It packs so much more of a punch than Fantine leading the Captain offstage, or to one side of the stage.

The way that Confrontation was staged was also so cool to me. In the shows I’ve seen the first part of Confrontation is Javert and Valjean facing off with Javert stage left and Valjean kind of up beside Fantine’s bed, but they’re on the same “level,” in that Valjean walks a few paces forward a few lines later and they grapple. In this version, they stood quite literally on either side of Fantine’s hospital bed, so that they’re arguing across her dead body.

Madame Thenardier made me think of a bizarre cross between Miss Hannigan, the mom from Matilda, and Patsy Stone from Absolutely Fabulous. She did a great job. M Thenardier is a douchey hipster pirate type guy with white guy dreads. Also they made him an ex-con as well, but he displays the numbers tattooed on his chest with pride compared to Valjean who hides them, which was yet another interesting decision.

This version of Les Mis has taught me that “My mom doesn’t let me drink” is the absolute BEST piece of spoken dialogue you could throw in before Master Of The House kicks the fuck off.

Also this version has Eponine participating in the scams during Master Of The House: she takes peoples’ orders, carries plates, dances, etc. She’s cleaner and more pampered than Cosette, but she’s still being used.

Look Down was really interesting to me. Now, I think what I’m about to say is partly informed by costuming. That is, I think with period costuming an audience has a harder time distinguishing more subtle roles between (non-main) characters. What I mean is, in traditional Look Down, it just seems like three characters having an argument with each other, but with a modernized version the costuming makes it clear that it’s an old beggar woman, a prostitute, and her pimp. While that’s obvious from the actual dialogue, the period costuming makes it a little harder to glean the separate character types other than “beggar type”. Anyway, the roles being clearer via costuming makes all the interactions seem a lot more Real. It’s not just people all dressed alike singing lines at each other, it’s actual separate people having actual conflicts.

Also, I really really liked Mark Hancock as Gavroche. He’s older, or at least bigger, than most kids who end up playing Gavroche, and he’s not the most beautiful singer, but I think that works all the better for a production like this one. He’s not a cutesy Oliver Twist-type character. He’s a kid living rough on the streets, and he’s got a sense of humor but he is a badass.

This version also had a LOT more flirtatious behavior between Marius and Cosette. Like it’s not just one glance on the street. During The Robbery, Marius and Cosette are giving little glances and flirty waves the whole time, all shy and cute, little hand signals like “I want to talk to you oh my god” etc. Also this Cosette has glasses! She’s so cute!

Stars as a song feels very weird when it’s a Modern Day Cop singing about such a philosophical topic, and at first I was kinda ??? about it. Because you know, in a period piece, you kind of expect more elaborate language, you expect certain types of morality, etc. It sounds weird coming out of someone dressed like a pig you’d see on the street in real life. But then at the end of the song Javert takes a rosary out of his breast pocket to sing “Lord let me find him...” etc, and suddenly it actually made a lot of sense. It finally connected the religious references and morality displayed in the lyrics. Because a lot of shitty cops in real life are masquerading as Christians, so again, a good decision.

Ah, the ABC Cafe. Always lovely to hear those horns. John Campione was AMAZING as Enjolras. At first I was a little disappointed they made him a white guy, but then I thought about it and it actually makes a lot of sense. Despite his passion about justice etc, Brick Enjolras is a wealthy student; what better way to show his privilege in a modern setting than to have him be white? Anyway, I think Campione did a great job of portraying a leader who is so passionate, and so dedicated, and so intent on his cause but also kind of stressed out as the day draws nearer. (More on that later.)

Similarly, this Grantaire is a little shit. He does this hilarious like “call on me!” hand raise before “I am agog, I am aghast” which I thought was quite funny and cute. Also after “It’s better than an opera,” the Amis all laugh and clap, and Enjolras does this extremely sarcastic slow clapping before admonishing Marius with “It is time for us all to decide who we are” etc. Also Grantaire and Enjolras are actually standing beside each other for Marius lines, so that when he says “struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight,” Grantaire looks directly at Enjolras and stays staring at him, so that when he moves downstage to stand across from Marius and sing “Red!” and “Black!” at him, it feels more like solidarity than mocking.

But then Enjolras pulls Marius further downstage for his “Marius you are no longer a child” etc lines. His body language is great here. When he sings “Who cares about your lonely soul,” he doesn’t just look like some charismatic leader man. He looks like someone who’s stressed out and a little annoyed/exasperated that this person is causing a distraction right when things are started to get important. He runs his hands through his hair, his gestures are clipped and fast, like he’s got too much energy and isn’t quite sure where to put it. It’s so good. He sings “Our little lives don’t count at all.” And then there’s a long, long moment of silence. A long one, where Marius looks around at his friends and realization that what they’re undertaking is much bigger than his emotional outburst, that Enjolras is right and he has to be with them instead of off in the clouds. And he raises his hand tentatively and then more surely towards Enjolras and sings that next “Red! The blood of angry men!” all on his own before the rest of the Amis join in. GREAT decisions there. SO COOL. (Also this is the moment when an Amis Hand Sign is established, which is important later on.)

This show uses silence in a way that I’ve never really seen another version do it. After Gavroche yells “General Lamarque is dead!” there’s usually a beat of silence before Enjolras begins to sing. In this version there is a long, long moment of silence when everyone looks around at each other, a moment where Joly tosses his pamphlet angrily onto the table and sits down with his head in his hands, a moment where Marius and Grantaire are the only two who turn away and face upstage at the news, a moment where they all process that this is fucking Real, and everything that they’ve been planning is suddenly Actually Happening. And then Enjolras begins, and his voice is so soft, and so sad, and it’s like he’s delivering a eulogy, but it’s only when he gets to “Is the sign we await!” and we get those trumpets that it changes into Enjolras The Leader, and it’s go time, and everything is Intense. Campione is fantastic as Enjolras because I think often people play Enjolras as this solid, charismatic leader who is stoney-faced and sure of himself etc. Which works for the period style (and is fairly Brick-accurate), but I think would seem a little odd in a modern day setting. This Enjolras is in it, he’s into it, he’s fucking intense and ablaze with energy. He sings Do You Hear The People Sing like he’s giving a speech, like he’s trying to convince (And “the real glory is to convince” so y’know).

And Do You Hear The People Sing as a campaigning song is brilliant. It starts out not with march, but with handing out fliers made of red paper, passing them out and getting out the word. Only then do they pull out signs and put on red caps and start marching.

In My Life/A Heart Full Of Love was so fucking hilariously cute. Marius and Cosette are both excellent levels of awkward, and there’s a lot of nonverbal flirting going on, and I just thought it was really well done.

I was told while I was live-tweeting that during One Day More the sort of dancing march they do (because it’s like a dance, instead of the in-place marching of the traditional version) is actually the Toyi-Toyi, a South African dance that was used as a form of protest during Apartheid and during other times as well. So that was a very cool addition. I’m sure there are other callbacks in this show to other protests or protest traditions like that that I didn’t even catch. The dance also reminded me of the body percussion used in A Quoi Tu Danses from 1789: Les Amants De La Bastille, so that was cool as well. We also get face paint and signs and red berets and button pins and a lot of stuff that has been seen in a lot of modern protests/movements lately.

Side note: Javert’s disguise is amazing because he retains his cop boots and trousers and crisp white shirt; he just puts a brown jacket and a red scarf over it and wears a red beret.

OKay SO. This is possibly the BEST On My Own I’ve ever seen. Now, I’m highly partial to Briana Carlson-Goodman as Eponine because the emotion in her voice is just mind-blowing. But this On My Own was so amazing. First of all, I’m amazed I’ve never seen any other production do this: when Eponine sings “pretending he’s beside me”, she puts out her hand like she’s holding some imaginary lover’s hand, like she’s genuinely imagining him walking with her, and it made her self-deception that much sadder. And this version was so good, I think because it was this perfect combination of angry and disappointed and yearning and self-deceiving. You can tell this Eponine KNOWS she’s deluding herself that Marius will ever love her, that she’s hugely disappointed and almost angry at that fact, but she still loves him and wants him and wants that love, and it just makes that self-deception all the stronger.

This version of Les Mis brings the barricade in as a flown set piece, which I think is an interesting decision. I definitely prefer the US Tour version, where the downstage scrim is backlit/lifted and both the audience and Eponine are suddenly confronted with the fully-built barricade. However, the barricade being flown in does give the Barricade Boys a moment to stand and admire their handiwork, so that’s kind of also cool.

(Somewhat unrelated, but throughout the show this Grantaire is a lot more still than other actors’ versions of R, but also more still than the other Amis in this show, so it’s clearly a choice. Other version of R are slumped over a table or slumped on the ground a lot, or they’re wobbly, or just generally restless and upset. This R is so still and just standing unmoved and blank it’s definitely a choice. Very much taking the “he seemed to be waiting there for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking” quote from the Brick and translating it to the stage version, in that he does move to shoot his gun but aside from that he’s so stock still it’s like he’s given up. Anyway. Back to the actual show instead of me just waxing lyrical about my favorite character.

When Eponine climbs over the barricade, Marius waves down all the guns just as Joly yells “There’s a boy climbing the barricade!” This kind of happens in other versions, but it seems like most of the traditional Les Mis versions all the Barricade Boys just kind of accept someone’s climbing the barricade and let Eponine over? In this one Marius like actually is waving down their guns, blatantly being like “don’t shoot, I know this person.”

And when Eponine is revealed to be shot, they don’t just let her die in Marius’ arms. The first half of A Little Fall Of Rain is sung with Eponine in Marius’ arms, but there’s also Feuilly there as a medic, pressing handkerchiefs to her wound, his hand on her with Marius’ hand on top of his and Eponine’s on top of them both. When Marius is saying “and you will live ‘Ponine,” medic/Feuilly shakes his head at him as if to say, ‘don’t tell her that, she’s not going to make it, I’m so sorry,’ but he still has his hand on her wound. It’s only when she sings “Just hold me now, and let it be” that Eponine pushes the medic/Feuilly away so she can die just with Marius. I really, really, really loved that because it seems so Right. Like, they’re fighting for a better world, they’re not just going to let an injured person die, they’re going to try their best to help her even if she’s dying and there’s nothing they can do. And I really liked that there was a medic there, but he was faced upstage, away from the audience, as if he was trying to help but also not intrude on this private moment. But when Eponine does push him away, he goes fairly easily, like he’s realized that she’s realized that she’s going to die. Also, instead of carrying Eponine offstage like a ragdoll, Grantaire and Feuilly bring over a stretcher and she’s carried off in it by Marius and Feuilly while Grantaire collects the handkerchiefs that were bloodied by her wound.

Valjean’s soldier disguise is the SWAT gear, even the helmet, although he mostly carries it in his hand rather than wearing it. It’s interesting because the difference between the SWAT gear and the suits he wears as Fauchelevent are a hugely stark difference, whereas the difference between his nice period clothes and the soldier’s period uniform isn’t quite so intense.

I noticed that during Drink With Me, Joly put his hand on Grantaire’s shoulder during “Let the wine of friendship never run dry,” which is sweet. I also noticed that aside from the moments where he was shooting his gun and the few moments he was being helpful re: Eponine’s death, Grantaire spends most of his time very very still, staring down at the floor with his shoulders slumped. He judges moments with just a shake of the head and turning away while others watch. His part in Drink With Me is sung with a bitterness that is more final than it is angry, like he can’t understand why they’ve all chosen to sacrifice themselves like this and he hates it and he’s bitter that all his friends are going to die but he’s realized there’s nothing he can do about it.

Bring Him Home is SUCH a hard song to sing and it’s actually really interesting in this version, I think. Because in traditional shows I think Valjean is played as a fairly calm person who is just always calm. Joshi plays his Valjean like he has taught himself to be calm, but inside he’s still kind of angry and traumatized and still has those instincts and still doesn’t quite know whether to believe in god or not, or something like that. So Bring Him Home is a moment where it seems like at first he’s just hoping, and then by the end of the song he’s genuinely imploring god to save Marius. Like it’s the first time he’s ever really begged a higher power to do something instead of just acting of his own power to make the good happen. I have no idea if I’m articulating myself well.

Again, Campione is a FANTASTIC Enjolras who plays him like a stressed out passionate leader who is constantly stuck between This Is Finally Real Hooray and Holy Shit This Is Too Fucking Real Oh God. In The Second Attack he portrays it really well, looking around at all the people he suddenly feels responsible for, body language like he’s trying to make too many split-second decisions. It’s just really good.

Death Of Gavroche is also great because even though this Gavroche is not the best singer, he gets shot once and keeps reaching for the bullets, and only stops when they riddle him with bullets. Also, I didn’t realize this until skipping around in the video to write this, but I think they kind of tried to retain some of the Gavroche-Grantaire relationship that the US Tour established? Grantaire goes from being kinda listless stage left to bolting over to the barricade once Gavroche starts climbing, reaching for him desperately; he gets shot in the leg and goes down and spends the rest of Gavroche’s lines up to his death with his head in his hands. Once Gavroche dies, Enjolras actually checks on Grantaire and wraps a tourniquet around his leg while Feuilly and Marius tend to Gavroche’s body.

Marius gets a thigh injury during The Final Battle (we know this because this production shows Actual Blood! Gavroche is actually bleeding! Eponine, too! And Marius! And Enjolras! Like there’s actual red and it makes it so much more intense! Anyway, Marius gets a bullet to the thigh, which frankly I think makes a lot more sense than the shoulder injury he gets in canon at least in terms of him being unconscious for so long (although I guess in canon he also has at least one head injury so meh). Anyway, Valjean sees it and immediately tourniquets him as one by one all the revolutionaries are picked off by bullets.

This Enjolras death is my favorite I’ve ever seen. We don’t get a permets-tu scene, but that’s okay because this is fantastic in another way. Enjolras doesn’t die on the barricade.

Enjolras is standing center stage, the bodies of his friends around him. He’s shot once, in the stomach, and goes down on all fours. As he’s on the floor, SWAT cops surround him, pointing machine guns straight at him. Enjolras struggles up, standing, and faces the cops and the audience. He raises his hand in a defiant fist to the air and is shot in the head.

Then there is a long, long stretch of silence. Quite literally an entire minute (I just counted) of silence, where there is no music, no speaking, nothing. Just the sounds of SWAT walking around, checking the bodies on the floor, and the indistinct sound of walky-talky chatter. Only after a whole minute of silence has passed and the SWAT leave the stage do the little plucked notes and the clarinet playing the Bring Him Home instrumental begin as Valjean stands up.

Valjean actually goes over and checks Enjolras’ pulse to see if he could possibly be alive, which I think hurts A Lot. And then there’s a moment where he looks around at all the bodies on the floor and kind of doubles over in shock, but only for a moment, and then he’s bolting back over to Marius to make sure he’s still breathing and then heaving him up into his arms.

(By the way, the bodies of the revolutionaries remain onstage through all of the proceeding songs.)

Dog Eat Dog is a boring, crap song in every production, and this one is no exception. The guy playing Thenardier is quite good but there’s really no way to redeem how boring a song Dog Eat Dog is. Also, this version cuts out the long instrumental part of Valjean walking with Marius through the sewer due to the fact that they don’t have that crazy projection thing. Instead it’s just a few seconds of him dragging Marius before encountering Thenardier and then also a few seconds before encountering Javert. Also, Valjean straight up puts his chest against Javert’s gun while he’s asking to save Marius’ life. Brave as fuck.

Okay this Javert’s Suicide was mostly really really good. Edward Watts gives Javert this sort of frantic emotion that Valjean spared him on the barricade and then is only asking to save this stranger. He looks genuinely freaked out and distressed. It’s not just confusion, it’s like actual Freaking Out. The only part I didn’t like was the actual throwing himself off the bridge part, but honestly I feel like there really is no way to do that part in a way that isn’t a little ridiculous-seeming. It’s hard to have a show where they never had any sort of fly rigs or any special types of practical effects at all and then suddenly there’s a guy flying through the air? and take that seriously. I dunno. But in any case, the rest of it is really good because the frantic confusion and questioning and anger and sadness and everything is so well done. Also, he takes his cross out of his pocket and drops it on the ground before he jumps, like he believes even god has failed him.

And then the lights return and the bodies of the revolutionaries are still onstage, with police tape cordoning them off. Turning begins with women in black mourning clothes coming onstage: at first they stand behind the tape with candles and flowers and teddy bears, then someone breaks the tape and they move to sit beside the bodies and set flowers down beside them. As Turning is going on, as the women move to sit beside the bodies, Marius also enters and sits in a chair upstage.

So Empty Chairs At Empty Tables happens with the bodies of the revolutionaries lying on the floor right in front of Marius, and women in black kneeling beside the bodies, facing upstage. But as Marius sings “Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor,” the revolutionaries rise and move downstage, looking at him. They all make their little group hand sign before exiting, until it’s just Enjolras looking at him, then he makes the sign as well and exits and Marius is left alone with the mourning women in front of him and his hand raised in farewell. It’s just SO GOOD because I think it makes it all the more real. It feels like he’s actually singing to the bodies of his friends as well as their memories, like he’s full of survivor’s guilt and he’s watching them walk away from him and doesn’t know what to do. Combining the Turning Women’s mourning with Marius’ mourning is really cool, because it shows it’s really not just Marius that’s affected by this, and essentially he’s singing Empty Chairs for himself as well as the women in mourning kneeling on the stage before him.

Side note: Dorcas Leung, who plays Cosette, is a True Fucking Soprano. Her voice is SO high. It’s wild. Like, really wild. Like, glass-breaking high but in a good way. Also she’s really cute.

Anyway, the next thing I took note of was Valjean telling Marius why he was leaving without telling Cosette goodbye. He sings “Promise me, Monsieur, Cosette will never know” and puts his hand out in a way that’s partially imploring, and partially asking for a handshake on the promise. Marius says “For the sake of Cosette, it must be so,” but pointedly does not shake his hand. He’s going to honor the promise but he’s not gonna fucking like it.

Wedding Chorale/Beggars At The Feast is mostly unremarkable except that Mme Thenardier is dressed like Cruella de Ville. Oh, and Thenardier gets a kick in the balls instead of a punch to the face from Marius. Also the actor who played Combeferre and the actor who played Bossuet are dancing together so during Beggars At The Feast when Thenardier sings “This one’s a queer, but what can you do?”, the Combeferre actor does a little wave.

I’ve always hated in the musical that Valjean goes from being perfectly healthy to straight up dying in a matter of minutes but I also understand that montages of like a year are hard to do in musical format, so I forgive it but it’s still annoying.

Anyway, this Epilogue is FUCKING FANTASTIC. Valjean does this beautiful laugh of relief and amazement when Fantine tells him “And you will be with god” like he’s still amazed after all these years that he’s a Good Person Who Deserves Heaven.

Also, Fantine sits down on the bench beside Valjean, and then when Marius and Cosette enters, Cosette runs and sits down between Valjean and Fantine, facing Valjean, and there’s a moment where Fantine smiles in disbelief and strokes Cosette’s hair like “oh my god this is my daughter!”

Finally, the fucking kicker for me: “Take my hand, I’ll lead you to salvation / Take my love, for love is everlasting.” That’s always the moment in the show when I start actually crying and this one made it even sadder: Eponine is not the only one to enter in that moment. Eponine enters singing the duet with Fantine like usual, but Enjolras and Gavroche also enter, standing behind her, not singing.

This was such a great, fascinating, unique decision, and I fucking loved it. Because with that group, you have all the types of love and belief that are Important in the Brick: Fantine, the love of a mother. Valjean, the love of a father and the faith and belief that comes from someone else suddenly believing in you and the goodness that is a result of that. Marius and Cosette, romantic love, but also love of children and chosen family. Eponine, unrequited love and sacrifice. Gavroche, not necessarily love but an innocent death, a death from the goodness that comes from wanting to help. And Enjolras, the love of the people, the belief in the people, love of patria and the belief in justice. Just all of these important symbols standing together.

Then Do You Hear The People Sing reprise starts up, and the rest of the cast enter and stand at the edges of the stage around the group at center before everyone scatters out and spreads across the stage.

So basically that was an incredible fucking show. Like, okay. Since joining the Les Mis fandom in late 2011-ish or something I've read A LOT of Les Mis fanfics, I've read the entire book, seen the show live half a dozen times plus a ton of filmed boots and movie adaptations and last year's BBC miniseries. I've got a Les Mis tattoo and I'm vaguely thinking of getting another one. I've read fanfic taking place in canon era, modern day, Mai 1968, the 90s, the 40s, and on and on. All of them are important because all of them interpret the themes differently. Basically what I'm saying is I've consumed A Lot of Les Miserables.

But this version of Les Mis is So Important. Like, it's important enough I'm really surprised they didn't give in to the call for a DVD recording back in 2014.

Because the difference between like, the traditional version of the show, and reading a modern day AU fanfiction, and this Dallas show is that this Dallas show is In Front Of You. It's important because you're used to seeing this show with 19th century clothes and 19th century mannerisms so you don't necessarily connect it to today, or you do on a surface level only.

And in fanfics you can imagine it, but it's not the same.

But this show takes the music we all know and the characters we all know and places it in front of us NOW. We get Valjean in an orange jumpsuit, posturing like we've seen people posture in real life. We get Enjolras in a denim vest and button pins. We get Fantine, a woman of color, being fired for having a child out of wedlock and being accused of prostitution, and having to actually turn to prostitution. And we get a depiction that shows so viscerally how horrible that is. We get white people as cops (SWAT, no less) while POC are abused.

Suddenly this is a show that connects on every level.

And not only that but the visuals of the actual rebellion can be connected to so many movements and protests and things that have happened in recent years. Like with the Toyi-Toyi. And all the signs and pins and face paint and weapons and clothes and even to some extent the barricade.

And the cops going from soldiers with bayonets (which, to be fair, back in the day were pretty daunting weapons with their triangular blades, but we don't see them that way) to SWAT with helmets that black out their faces and semi-automatics is a a hard-hitting message.

And I've always thought it was funny that people who see the show casually think it's about Marius & Cosette's romance. Because that’s not all it’s about, of course. But this version made me really, really realize how little that romance matters in the musical. How much the musical is about Valjean, and then in tandem about the rebellion. Because place the whole "I've known you a day and I'm in love" thing in a modern setting and you realize how ridiculous it is, and how much more important Valjean's growth is, and how much more important the movement and the rebellion is. I mean the entire book is just about the Power Of Love And Belief In All Its Forms etc etc. But I think this version pointed out better than any other how many other forms of love exist in this story, besides the romance of Marius and Cosette.

But truly I think the most important thing that this show did is what I mentioned earlier: it placed the story, its themes, its characters, its rebellion, it's Love and Belief, in the Here And Now, and made it really, truly connect with its audience and the present world. This is a show that people always say is so relevant, so important, and it is. It really is. But sometimes, for a casual viewer, it’s hard to see past the period costumes and sets. And then you transplant the show into modern dress and modern sets and suddenly it’s a story that is just as believable and hard-hitting and important now as it was then. Suddenly you can connect with these characters and you can see these things happening in real life, in present day, and you can believe that it would happen.

It just blows my mind that we have all these Modern AU fanfiction pieces, that we have multiple groups of people doing Modern Les Mis Youtube interpretations, that there’s a Spanish musical out there that’s purely about Grantaire (which, god I wish there was more info on!), that there’s a ton of music and TV adaptations and yet this is the first time I’ve seen a professional company do any sort of modern interpretation of the show. And it works SO incredibly well and is SO hard-hitting and just took my breath away.

Uh so yeah such massive praise to the Dallas Theater Center for having the courage and imagination and awesomeness to finally do a modern version of this story because they knocked it out of the damn park and made an already important story even more important.

#les miserables #les mis #dallas les mis #dallas les miserables #dallas theater center #dallas theater center les miserables #les mis dallas #les miserables meta #les mis meta

45 notes · View notes

anthonycrowleymoved · 5 years ago

Text

okay i fell asleep so i didn’t make it last night but i promised i’d rank Crowley Hairstyles From Worst To Best alright here goes

CROWLEY HAIRSTYLES FROM WORST TO BEST ACCORDING TO TUMBLR USER MAGGIE ANTHONYCROWLEY:

14. shakespeare hair - this hair is so bad i forgot to mention it yesterday in all of my ‘worst hairstyles’ posts because my brain blocks it out for my own personal safety. when i see it my fight or flight instinct kicks in. it’s really, really bad

13. 1800s sideburns - this is arguably his straightest look and is being judged accordingly

12. roman hair - it’s BAD fam if he needs short hair this is NOT the look that’s all i have to say about that

11. 2007 hair - i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. it’s bad. it was bad when the first set pic was released. it’s bad now. it will always be bad. i know this is controversial but he looks like, i don’t know, he’s trying to look like the lead singer of nickleback or something. it’s bad. on the upside it’s somehow also a perfect mix of my two favorite professors’ hairstyles who happen to both be lesbians so points for that

10. eden hair - it looks like a bad wig which i’m willing to admit most of these are bad wigs but it looks like an especially bad wig f i g h t m e

9. king arthur times - probably something undoubtedly wild as has been said but we never got to see it. homophobia

8. french revolution - ok apparently this is everyone’s least favorite which is balls to the wall wild frankly it’s. fine. to quote douglas richardson: “not bad. not good, though.”

7. world war ii - he gets points for it being the hairstyle he kills nazis with and the whole Aziraphale Thing™, but alas, it’s kinda boring. it is a cool hat though

6. nanny ashtoreth - points for Gender™ but also there’s better Gender™ looks sorry

5. 1960s - he looks like if joyce byers was a beatle. iconic

4. 2012 man bun - FIRST GENUINELY GOOD HAIRSTYLE. BEST MODERN GENDER™ LOOK BY FAR. AMAZING. STUNNING. BEAUTIFUL. the fact that he only wore this for probably a year at most? criminal

3. present day bird - i recognize that this is very high ranking and maybe unfairly so but 1. i remember the first time i saw it and was so elated that he wouldn’t be wearing the Bad 2007 Look Do Not @ Me Hair™ through the whole show that when i look at it now i still have residual happiness. 2. the hair floop in the scenes at the ex-hospital singlehandedly made me realize that maybe i DO have a crush on david tennant (this was after i saw him in both doctor who and fright night, among other things), and 3. he looks like every smith lesbian i had a crush on who was painfully out of my league

2. 1970s - OOHHH YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS GONNA BE NUMBER ONE HUH ??? DIDN’T YOU HUH ?? WELL U WERE WRONG but it is very good unironically. i love him

1. mesopotamia/jesus times - put together because they are pretty much exactly the same except for the MAGNIFICENT headscarf and if i had to choose between them my Definite Number One would be jesus times but i didn’t want them to be number one and two. anyway. it seems he wore this hair for upwards of three thousand years and frankly it was one of his best decisions. crowley please bring this back thank u

i think i got all of them let me know if i forgot something

#shut up maggie #text #go tv

185 notes · View notes

annakie · 5 years ago

Text

I’m up to “42″ in my Doctor Who rewatch.

Between rewatching the show and still making my way through my blog’s early days when I was yelling at a lot of people who tagged their Martha Jones hate back in the day, I’m definitely back on my Martha Jones bullshit. (Sending love to the 2011 - 2013 Martha Jones Defense Squad.)

Out of curiosity, I went through the Martha Jones tag just now, to see if all these years later the hate is still that strong. I was pleasantly surprised that I went back through a year’s worth of posts and saw one post that was negative about Martha, in March. Compared to what we used to see back in the day, it was mild. Now, I have many hundreds of people blocked on tumblr, so it’s possible I didn’t see something, but to see so little Martha hate was really nice. I mean there were probably only like 300 - 400 posts made in the last year, but considering the tag used to be like 20 new posts a day and at least five of them would be hate, that’s not too bad. But hey, there’s a lot fewer people on tumblr, fewer people watching Doctor Who (especially when no new episodes are airing and won’t be for awhile), and I feel like the people who are still here are probably an older demographic now.

I was watching the first handful of Martha episodes yesterday while browsing my early-ish blog (I’m up to mid-2012 now) and man it was annoying to see so many posts I’d responded to (or reblogged other people’s responses to) about Martha. Some of my “favorite” reasons people justified hated her:

She “doesn’t know how to think”

She’s “a cliche”

She was soooo ungrateful to the Doctor

She was very insensitive leaving him when he needed her (doesn’t matter if her family needed her and she needed a break, how dare she not cater to his pain!?!?)

And of course, the ones that just called her a bitch, stupid, useless, ugly, a moron, a slut, and hey someone even stooped to the N-word. Yeah, every single one of these are things that were said and I replied to in 2011 / 2012.

As I’m scrolling through my blog, I sometimes go and check out the tumblrs of the people who made these assertions and they’re almost always deactivated/deleted or at least inactive. You know, it’s tumblr in 2019. This place is a shadow of its former self anyway. I’d love to see if any of these people’s opinions have grown or changed. There are several people in the Martha Jones tag who say “I used to hate her, now I realize how bad that opinion was”, which is nice.

In general this trip down memory lane as of late has been enlightening. I really don’t feel that different about Doctor Who than I did back then. I still enjoyed Rose as a companion and appreciated her relationship with the Doctor -- I never hated her, it was always a matter of a small percentage extremely obnoxious fans discoloring feelings towards the character. I am still loving Martha Jones and hating how the Doctor treats her. I’m looking forward to revisiting all the things I still have coming up.

A few recent observations... I still couldn’t sit through Fear Her, had to skip over it by 10 minutes in. Love and Monsters is 35 minutes of a pretty great episode and a last 10 minutes spoiled by maybe the worst villain in DW history. Mickey Smith is a Goddamn joy and people who hated him were just as wrong as the Martha haters. Jackie and alt-Pete’s first meeting in Doomsday still made me cry. Martha Jones is amazing from minute one. I almost skipped the Daleks in Manhattan episodes, which I think are the only truly bad episodes in her season, but sat through them anyway. I liked them more this time. Still not great, but this was maybe the first time I actually understood everything that was going on. Still, penis-head human-dalek was.... nope. I’ll never understand what they were thinking with that design.

Doctor Who, these early episodes especially, is still a wildly uneven show, with brilliant and cringe-worthy things in every episode, often in the same scene. It’s still frustrating at times, there’s still things that make me cheer out loud, want to scream at the TV, and occasionally cry. But it’s still good TV in as much as it really works hard at making you feel. I still get why we were all obsessed it way back when. I think it’s a show that shaped modern fandom in more ways than most people would want to admit. And hey, even if I’m not obsessed with the show liek that anymore, I think the most recent couple of seasons have been damn good, overall.

#martha jones #doctor who #personal post tag thingy

13 notes · View notes

patchwork-artists · 5 years ago

Photo

This is a post about the evolution of my art from 2011(or 2012?) to today, 14/7/19. I made this post purely for me, but if you want to reblog it, i won’t mind.

Around 2012, i started drawing on paint with the mouse. I admit, i am not happy with how these look, the body is to thin and the head is too big, they have no face, i can’t see the drawing cleary, and more. But, for a 7-8 years old drawing on mouse, they aren’t bad.

I started posting on tumblr instead of Facebook around this time. I started growing up, i knew what i liked and what i wanted to be, so the way i started drawing myself reflected on that. I like the marks and the way i used the spray, i actually really like this drawing and the colors i choose, even if they weren’t put on with thought.

I started trying to paint and make different skin colors, different body shapes and different designs. I started paying more attention to the modern fashion and take influences, but still didn’t gave up completely on my own style. I also started playing with gradients the way i could with the pixel tool in paint.

I started drawing on paint tool sai and it was really hard on the start, i didn’t understood how painting worked and most of my drawings ended up uncolored, but i tried anyways. I tried to paint and make nice colors, and honestly drawing gems really helped me with that because i had a palette but i still had to pick the colors myself.

I went back to drawing on paint from time to time, i was more used to that and knew how to use it, but i still tried to play with paletes. I used to trace a lot and my art had so much influence from my tracing, but here i’m trying to change that, i’m trying to change my artstyle and have something unique, not because i was unhappy with my artstyle, but because i wanted to try new things.

Around this time i was starting to try lineless art on pts like i did on paint and started understanding layers more. I don’t like this drawing as much as the previous one, but it was a start for me.

I tried to make special drawings for my ace interview, so i tried doing my best and ended up making a new thing that i never did again for some reason, pastel space. I mixed the colors well and was starting to put details and pay attention to the body itself instead of the clothes.

My designs were more distinguished from each other around this time, i tried to make piercings, cuts, freckles, things that i didn’t wanted to have but knew would give personality for my character, and that mattered more then my personal taste. I also tried to give my characters different fashion instead of whatever outfit i liked.

These two are from last year and probably my favorite pieces. At one i used the fact that it was lineless to make it simpler and make the composition also simpler but easy to understand and interpretate. On the second one, i tried giving as much details i could to show their culture and distinguish both of them even if they are from the same species, like humans! And i’m so pround of this one, it might be the drawing i like the most- and it isn’t even colored!

And for last, two from this year! I mixed everything i learned so far-how to make colors work together in harmony(from palettes),i gave the characters their own fashion (Callisto prefer more confortable clothes and doesn’t care that much as, let’s say, Ganimede, about what he’s wearing. Melissa(holy fuck i remembered her name) needs shorter clothes since she’s always in water and needs to move fast, but also cares about her appearence, so there’s more details on her shorts and she has a belt she doesn’t need. Also, she has vines because of her culture.),i also made the designs simpler enough to remember from head but complicated enough to catch your eye, made different artstyles from both of them, and in Melissa there’s even a lineless touch in her design(her vines)! And even putted a new trick- i don’t need to always make the distance clear by making it darker, i can also make it transparent, it will actually call more attention and give more charm!

Conclusion, my art grew a lot and became way better and prettier and i needed this post to prove this to myself, so i’m glad i did it, i’m glad with how far i’ve come, i’m happy with my current art and i look foward to improve more in the future!

14 notes · View notes

punninglyswift · 7 years ago

Text

Dear Taylor,

I’m not great with words. But I have so many words I need to say to you. I thought I’d give you a story of the first time I heard one of your songs, and how now reputation is coming out as I am nearing graduation from college. THAT. IS. CRAZY.

So I’ll try to tell you everything. Here goes.

I’m Isabelle! This is my mom and I:

I’m 20, a Christmas baby...people say that sucks ‘cause ‘no double presents’ but honestly i love having my birthday on Christmas ‘cause I love giving gifts. (ie..getting weirdly specifically funny gifts for my older brothers...!) I turn 21 this Christmas! (So down to drink with you whenever...)

I’m from Rockville, MD, basically right outside DC (kinda) but I’m currently in Chicago for school at Loyola University Chicago! I have 2 foolish yet incredibly smart brothers, my mom is my best friend in the whole world, and I live with my grandparents as well. I’ve played piano since age 3, I love to sing, I am OBSESSED with musical theatre, I love to make people laugh and, on that note, I love comedy-sketch, improv, stand up…you name it. I love puns a little too much…but CAN someone love puns too much? THE LIMIT DOES NOT EXIST. But I digress. There’s someone who has had a huge impact on my life who I’ve never met, and that someone is you.

2007. I’m in 5th (pretty sure) grade, and our school’s talent show is coming up. Basically, we had to audition to even perform at the talent show (a concept I did not understand but as I type this I’m realizing that is the premise of most music competition shows on TV? Good job, Isabelle. Nailed it.) I played piano, that was it, but an older student (maybe 7th grade at the time) auditioned with a song I hadn’t heard before…it was a song called Our Song. I quickly became obsessed with the song. We both got into the talent show, and she ended up performing A Place in this World in front of the school. I ended up playing my piano piece. Those two songs, not even sung by you the first times I heard them, started my love of your music.

Now...2009-2010. (TIME TRAVEL, RIGHT??) I am in 8th grade, going into high school (CRAZY) and tickets for a certain tour are on sale…the Fearless tour. You had one date in the summer of 2010 for DC at the Verizon Center, but it conflicted with my 8th grade graduation. THEN, because MIRACLES HAPPEN, there was a second date added for DC, the day before the original tour date! Unfortunately, the day before my actual graduation ceremony we had a “mandatory” pre-graduation dinner thing. Still a little bitter I couldn’t go to the Fearless tour, but I made up for it later with 3 other tours.

2011! Freshman year of high school? Life before I knew who I was gonna be...I’m honestly still not sure, as a senior in college. Anyways, freshman year of high school? Not awesome! I went to an all-girls Catholic high school, and I made a lot of friends, but those friendships didn’t really happen till sophomore year. Sophomore year is when I truly threw myself into my school’s performing arts department. I fell in love. I had actually done shows in the summer at my high school, but they were summer camp-y programs, so it was before I was a student there. The first show was Hairspray, follows by the spring production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. In between, I participated in an Improv Show and a dance concert. Ok. So. I cannot dance. I enjoy dancing, and especially now I still say I cannot dance, but I LOVE DANCING. I love dancing and looking 1000% foolish while doing so. I signed up for a class called “Intro to Modern Dance” thinking it meant modern music, like ‘at the moment’ music. WRONG.

Basically….I, a VERY pale short female with short brown hair and bangs, wore different pastel leotards that had flowy fabric attached to them and pranced across stage before doing what can ONLY be described as ‘birthing motions’.

...True story. Anyways, not the worst thing, but a funny thing.

So, summer 2011: I was an ensemble member in our summer production of Footloose. I also had successfully gotten (thank you Mom…) tickets to night 1 of the Speak Now World Tour in DC for August 2011. I went by myself, but my oldest brother, Jerry, dropped me off and made sure I was safely inside before he went to a Nationals game. He picked me up as well, and he ended up catching the final sounds of that concert from standing in the lobby after the game. I remember everything about that concert. I remember being awestruck when the incredibly touching intro to the album was spoken by you, and then awestruck by the smoke machine….leading to a powerful, young woman rising up from under a stage in a gold glittery dress. That alone blew me away. I took a few pictures at that show, but this one sticks out-partially because it is the least blurry one I took, and partially because I like that you see you on the big screen and onstage. You were so connected to the crowd. It was a truly magical night:

That night and the Speak Now album mean so much to me. It’s special because it was the first time I ever saw you perform live, Taylor, but also because the album has so many songs I hold dear. All your albums do.

Fearless has songs that reassure me, even at age 20, like Fifteen, and it has the song that is my mom’s favorite…The Best Day. It also has anthems that make my heart pound with a sort of fire…Change.

Speak Now, similarly, has songs that resonate with me and will continue to resonate with me forever. I can’t even talk about Never Grow Up on here or ever because it makes me cry thinking about how much I love my grandparents, brothers, and my marvelous mom. Enchanted is a song that I could quite possibly talk about for days and days and days. It so specifically illustrates all the emotions I feel when I truly “crush” on someone. It also is helpful, because the words you put to that song are lightyears more poignant than how I could describe how I put feelings into words. And you DID. THAT. Enchanted is a song that means so much to all of us, for obvious reasons. I have to say that “the words i held back” as well as the prologue to speak now really parallel all my worries about overthinking and being afraid to speak up. Thank you for those words.

It is 2012, my high school is doing The Wiz, and I am freaking out over RED. Red was a turning point for you, and again, it illustrated feelings in ways I couldn’t fathom: “all I feel in my stomach is butterflies, the beautiful kind, making up for lost time, taking flight…”, “everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool..”–I was a junior in high school at this time, and I had experienced bullying and people talking behind my back constantly as well as some cyberbullying. It was not great. The theatre really helped me. My mom surprised me, in 2013, with tickets to night 1 of the Red tour in DC! I went by myself, but I got a text 15 minutes into being in my section from my mom that said “do you see the big Red sign?” …aka this:

…which was not lit (hehe…LIT) at the time my mom texted me. She ended up hearing from a friend that had extra box seats so she called up 2 other friends from work and they joined her in a completely different section from me in the Verizon Center! I just think it’s so funny!! This ended up being more meaningful than I’d thought because this show was the day before Mothers Day. The “surprise” B stage song was Never Grow Up, a song my mom and I adore. From the entrance to the light up drums to the music box to confetti galore, this was another night i’ll never forget.

My mom and I circa 1999. I love that photo, and, to me, I hear Never Grow Up AND The Best Day playing when I look at it.

I forgot to say another thing when talking about all your tours: I am obsessed with musical theatre, and something you never fail to include on tours is a theatrical feel. It’s always so beautifully done, with quirky “Stage direction” type things and costumes…thank you for that.

By this time…I’ve graduated high school and decided on a school in the midwest…the windy city itself, CHICAGO. Loyola University Chicago, in fact!

It is summer 2014, and I have had a tumblr for some time, mostly filled with photos of bunnies, you-related things/edits, SNL, Harry Potter, and puns. (The basics, you know…not much has changed!)

There have been videos by this time of elevator buttons and secrets about a LIVESTREAM. So, in the car with my mom on the way to move into my dorm (we stopped at Notre Dame on the way because it’s a LONG drive from where I live and most of my family has attended ND! I also worked at Notre Dame this past summer!) I was using a bunch of data to stream your livestream…and? 1989 is coming! I played Shake it Off a LOT on that car ride once I downloaded it. It was so cool because I tried to brush off the bullying I faced in high school and something you said about 1989 was this: “This is a story about coming into your own, and as a result…coming alive.” The album with that message brought me into my freshman year of college, a year filled with many ups and downs. I thank you for being there for me.

Summer 2015, I had the great honor of going to night 1 (JULY 13, yes 13…!!!) of the 1989 Tour in DC, this time at Nationals Park-outside, which was VERY exciting for me, with my godmother! Lorde was the surprise guest, and I am now happy to say I am seeing Lorde live in concert March 2018! The 1989concert was spectacular, it was clear you were taking charge of doing what YOU want and sticking to your genuine, full heart 24/7. I can’t thank you enough for the memories you’ve given me.

I love everyone on here, on tumblr, even though I do not know any of them–in real life. I hope to meet all of you guys, you’re hilarious on here, and I may not post as often as many of you, but I send you all love always.

Now, I am a senior in college. That is WEIRD AF. I turn 21 this Christmas, (I’m a Christmas baby!) I graduate in May, and after that I don’t have plans. I need to get a job, I know that, but uncertainty is AT AN ALL TIME HIGH right now.

reputation is coming out during my SENIOR year of college, a time with SO much uncertainty...definitely more uncertainty than freshman year. I cannot wait to be empowered and enlightened by this album and I can’t help but thank you for this new album and more encouragement to be myself, my best self.

reputation comes out in less than 1 month, and I cannot wait. From what I know so far, and what I know about your “Take no shit and spread so much love no matter what as a strong independent woman” attitude is that I will love this album FOR. SURE. I love you endlessly. I really, really, really hope to meet you someday, and I hope you know that you mean so much to me. Thank you for being a friend to me, even when all I needed was a high note, a funny post, a cat photo, photos of you with fans that make my heart burst, and the hope that someday I’ll meet you. I can’t wait for that day.

Thank you for your heart.

I love you so much, Tay.

Love,

Isabelle

@taylorswift

#taylor swift #PLZ REBLOG #reputation #red #1989 #fearless #speak now

204 notes · View notes

thisaintascenereviews · 7 years ago

Photo

A Conversation About The State Of Rock & Roll

By Bradley Christensen & Jake Higgins

An article published by Genius last year talked about how rock music is on its way out, and how hip-hop is essentially taking over. For the first time, rap music has eclipsed rock music as being the most popular style of music, and a lot of “tr00 rawk fans,” which are what I call the elitists and purists of rock music that only listen to music that features your standard guitar, bass, and drums setup, got angry, because their precious rock music was being eclipsed over hip-hop. Even before that article was published, rock music has been on the decline for many years now, but are most people shocked by that? I’ve gotten more into heavy metal over the last few years, and I’ve noticed how much different rock and heavy metal are from each other. Not even in terms of how they sound, but in terms of their popularity and relevance. Heavy metal, despite being a more underground style of music that not many people are familiar with (at least outside a handful of really popular bands), has many different sub-genres, styles, and sounds to it. With the state of modern rock music, there isn’t that much variety, and as I’ll get into later on, because that’s one of my biggest issues with rock music as a whole, a lot of bands within the rock scene are starting to blend together into a homogenous pool of the same vocal melodies, riffs, and overall ideas. It’s just not exciting or interesting, and that’s coming from someone that loves rock music from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and even a bit of the 1990s. It was around the turn of the millennium that rock music started declining, but I’ve wondered why that is. The state of rock music in 2018 has been on my mind recently for a couple of reasons, because I’ve noticed bands going into two different directions.

The rock bands that are capturing my attention, especially from the newer wave of bands, are ones that look back to the past. These are bands like Greta Van Fleet, The Record Company, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Struts, Rival Sons, and The Revivalists, among others, but these bands are all notable for reminding me a lot of bands from yesteryear, such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Eagles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, and bands that are incredibly influential, timeless, and classic for the right reasons. That’s why it’s odd to me that what’s actually popular are bands like Theory Of A Dead Man, Nothing More, Five Finger Death Punch, Nickelback, and all of these other garbage “butt-rock” bands. The crowning jewel of that is the new Three Days Grace single, “I Am An Outsider.” That just came out, and spoiler alert: it’s one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. I never thought they’d be able to get even worse, especially since TDG used to be a very well-loved and respected band in the genre, but here we are. I was planning on talking about this song, as well as the state of rock music, on my own, because I’ve been into a lot of bands that need to be more talked about, but I remembered the conversation that I put out with my best friend Jake, where we discussed the new Fall Out Boy album at great lengths, so he offered to do something very similar with me again. I couldn’t say “no,” because he’s the resident modern rock expert, and I’m the resident “classic rock” expect, so I thought it would be neat to talk about the state of rock music, because there are rock bands coming out of the woodwork that really appeal to me, especially as a fan of bands from the past.

Bradley: Aye (again) bbygurl! <3 It’s really cool that we’re doing this yet again, because I had a blast the first time we did this about a month ago, give or take. For those of you that are unaware, Jake and I did this when we talked about Fall Out Boy’s latest LP, M A N I A. We had a conversation that talked about our history with the band, as well as our own friendship, and how that all ties in with M A N I A. Anyway, it was incredibly fitting that we did that with Fall Out Boy, because they’re the band that brought us together, but I wanted to talk about rock music as a whole. Before we dive into that, though, what are your experiences with rock music? You pretty much grew up on rock music, and that’s what you mainly listened to before we met, so what got you into the genre all those years ago?

Jake: Aye again, bbygurl! <3 Thanks for bringing me back for another one of these, because I loved our deep-dive on Fall Out Boy and M A N I A. Anyway, for this topic, let's take the readers back to 2006-2007. I was in a pretty transitional period in my life, mainly due to moving and having to uproot my entire home life. It wasn't easy for me, so I found myself gravitating towards music that reflected my feelings. I was also at the perfect age where I was starting to branch off into my own music tastes, so it really was a perfect storm. My first favorite band was, almost obviously, Linkin Park. I loved their mix of aggressive music and angsty lyrics, because that's just what I needed. Then, I heard Three Days Grace's One-X, and that's what really hooked me. I loved vocalist Adam Gontier, and his lyrics hit me on a really deep level. To this day, it's my favorite album of all time, and I still feel the same way I do now when I first heard it all those years ago. Naturally, I decided to explore similar bands such as Breaking Benjamin, Seether, and the like. They all have their unique elements, but generally, they're all under the same banner. Until I met you in late 2012, this is pretty much all I ever listened to, mainly because I was perfectly content with that. Six years later, however, I'm sort of at a crossroads with the genre. I'll explore that more as we get further into this discussion, but for now, let's turn it back over to you. When you first met me, what did you make of the music I was into, and specifically, when you gave One-X a try for the first time, that being my favorite album of all time, what were your thoughts on that as well as the genre in general?

Bradley: Of course, bbygurl, I had to bring you back on board for this, especially since we both have been thinking about writing something on the current state of rock music, so it was only natural to have another conversation pieces on it, but I digress. When we first met, almost six years ago now, our music tastes were awfully different, because there was a lot that I didn’t listen to. I was mainly into pop-punk, indie-rock, metalcore, post-hardcore, and some pop, “classic rock,” and things like that. I definitely knew who all of those bands were, but it wasn’t my scene. That’s why I ended up listening to One-X, because it was (and still is) your favorite album of all time, so I thought it was only fair to listen to that, considering that we met because of my favorite album (Infinity On High by Fall Out Boy). One-X is a great first introduction to this style of music, because it does everything right within the confines of the genre. I was awfully positive on the album when I first heard it, and I still enjoy it today, although I don’t listen to it much at all. When it comes to hard-rock itself, my thoughts are pretty mixed on it, and I think that’s partly because our favorite kinds of “rock music” are quite different. While you’re into bands like Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Chevelle, and Three Days Grace, I’m more into Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, The Eagles, and plenty of bands like that. Even when we first met, I was awfully mixed on hard-rock. I hadn’t really listened to anything that caught my attention, and that heavier style of rock just didn’t appeal to me. I can’t say that it really appeals to me today, either, minus a handful of bands.

Listening to One-X did eventually help me to get into Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin, and Shinedown, so there are some bands I really like, but a lot of bands are boring, formulaic, and generic beyond belief. A lot of bands, both back then and today, follow a very strict set of rules and limitations. There’s a very set formula to a lot of these bands. That’s not a bad thing in itself, because if you like that formula, you’ll like a lot of these bands, as well as this genre (and I’m sure that’s why you connected to it). To be fair, and in defense of some of these bands, the formula can work really well. The bands that I listed are ones that have perfected that formula, or they’re some of the rare unique acts in the genre, but I’m getting off track, as well as ahead of myself, because we’ve got quite a lot to cover within this piece. You mentioned that you were at a crossroads with the genre, so I think we should talk about that before we talk about anything else. What do you mean that you’re at a crossroads with this genre? When did you realize that you were even at a crossroads with it? Was there a certain band / album that you listened to that made you realize that?

Jake: Well, I'm just gonna cut to the chase; listening to Nothing More's self-titled, debut album a couple years ago nearly broke me. When that album came out, Nothing More was the hot band in the scene, and because I was already itching for new and exciting bands in the scene, that was an album I had to check out. I know you had heard it before I did, and you weren't into it much at all, but I still had to give it a shot. Well, that was an utter shitshow, wasn't it? That album is still one of the most cynical and just plain awful attempt at refreshing the genre, so after looking for so long for something beyond the reliable veterans, I was about ready to call it quits.

Bradley: The reason I asked that, bbygurl, is because I was pretty sure that you’d bring up Nothing More, because they’re a perfect example of one of the biggest problems with the genre. I got a download from a buddy of mine years ago, because he thought I’d be into them, and this was before they release the physical copy of their self-titled LP. I knew it was pretentious garbage before I realized where the state of modern rock music was going, and looking back at it in retrospect, I could totally see why you were so annoyed and disgusted with it. I have two major issues with rock music, and using Nothing More as a jumping off point, I wanted to briefly discuss them. The major issue I have with the genre is how generic, repetitive, and bland it is. Bands don’t want to adapt to the vast music landscape today (we talked about Fall Out Boy in our last conversation, and they’re not a hard-rock band, but they’re a perfect example of a band that’s managed to stay relevant by adapting to music), and as a result, their music is lifeless, boring, forgettable, and run of the mill. I mean, look at Three Days Grace’s newest single, the title track to their upcoming LP, I Am An Outsider. God, that title makes me cringe, because it sounds like a 12-year-old emo kid wrote that, but the song is even worse. I bet that’s still gotta hurt for you, because One-X is such a powerful record for you, bbygurl. That’s another discussion for another day, but that song is the epitome of how bland and lifeless the genre has become over time. Nothing More, if you want to look at the opposite extreme, is a band that tries to overcompensate by being overly experimental, weird, and unique, only for that to come off pretentious, preachy, and arrogant. My personal favorite hard-rock band is Chevelle, and they’re a band that you turned me onto, actually, but they’re one of the more unique bands out there. Does that about cover it, bbygurl, or is there anything that you’d like to add?

Jake: Nothing More is the poster child for my frustrations with the newer crop of bands and how they either refuse to change at all or they just try way too hard, but let's go back to Three Days Grace for a second. One-X is my favorite album of all time, but 2015's Human, their first with current vocalist Matt Walst, was the ultimate kick in the gut, and is my least favorite album of all time. Pretty crazy, right? We reviewed that album together, and you know how angry that thing made me. I won't retread that entire review, but basically, that was a case of a band trashing their past while trying so desperately trying to pander to the fanbase all at once. The results were utterly awful, but somehow, this new song "I Am An Outsider" is even worse. The song has what might be the most laughable choruses I've heard in a long while. You're right, it sounds like a 12 year-old wrote this in his diary. The sound itself? Even more lifeless and generic than even Human was. That album is gonna be terrible, for sure, but let's come back to the bigger picture. I'm at a crossroads with the genre because so many bands fall into the Nothing More camp or the Three Days Grace camp, and I can only really rely on my favorite veterans. That's why I loved 10 Years' new album last year; their was no bullshit, just a great band doing their thing. But even then, I feel like if a genre is going to survive, we need more than solid albums from veteran bands. We need new things, or at least fresh spins on tried and true sounds.

Bradley: I definitely remember reviewing Human together, bbygurl, and that was an unpleasant piece of trash. It’s unfortunate that a band so great fell that hard from grace, but that’s why I said that’s another discussion for another day. Hell, if you really think about it, Three Days Grace is a totally different band now. Aside from the context of the song, as well as the band itself, “I Am An Outsider” showcases one extreme of how bad the genre has gotten. Nothing More is on the other end of the spectrum by acting like they’re better than everyone else, whether it’s by trying to seem deep with their lyrics (one example I always give is “Mr. MTV,” the song where they talk about how awful MTV is, because no one knows that already, right?), or how experimental and pretentious they are with the music itself. Remember their newest one and how that was just a bunch of senseless noise? I really didn’t like that album at all. It was easily one of the worst of the year for me. It’s funny that you say that we need new things, or at the very least, fresh spins on tried and true sounds, because that’s what I’ve noticed. Remember a couple of years ago when I discovered Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats? I almost thought they were a fluke, because they’re a band that mixes a lot of styles from the 1960s, whether it’s rockabilly, rock and roll, blues, soul, and folk. They’re a band that plays much more to a retro sound than every other band out there. What’s cool, too, is that they’re signed to Stax Records, which is one of the oldest labels in existence, but it’s a label that was very popular during the 1960s and 1970s for soul music, especially down south, but that’s besides the point.

For a long time, I thought that they were the only band of their kind (I mean, you have a band like The Gaslight Anthem, too, who are very much influenced by Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty), but lately, I’ve been discovering bands left and right that have very retro influences. Bands like Greta Van Fleet, The Record Company, Rival Sons, Red Sky Mary, Scorpion Child, Goodbye June, and The Temperance Movement, just to name a bunch of bands, are popping up and amassing a good amount of buzz in the rock scene. I think this is what rock needs, bbygurl. Rock, as a whole, has become so distant, out of touch, and disoriented from music itself that it’s no wonder why people don’t care about it as much anymore. I mentioned that article from Genius in the beginning of this piece, and I remember when it came out, because a ton of “tr00 rawk” fans got angry over it, because it dared to suggest that their precious guitars and stuff aren’t relevant anymore, or at the very least, aren’t as relevant as they used to be. In order for people to care about rock music again, whether it’s the mainstream or diehard fans like yourself that want something new, I think rock needs to go back to its roots, so to speak. All the bands I mentioned, plus many more, are being influenced by the 1970s blues-rock / hard-rock, minus a couple of exceptions that are more influenced by glam-rock / power-pop, and that’s a time when rock music really flourished. These bands just might make people realize what made rock so great in the first place. That’s what they do for me, honestly, because they sound like classic bands that I love. What do you think, bbygurl? I know you’re not a “classic rock” kinda guy, even though I’ve been trying to get you onto certain bands / artists for a long time now, but what are your thoughts on that?

Jake: You know, I actually find it super fascinating that a lot of these bands coming up the ranks of the rock scene are looking to the past for inspiration, because at first glance, this wouldn't seem like a viable option. Look at Fall Out Boy and how they continue to push the envelope with more modern sounds, and it's done super well for them. Clearly, people want to see bands grow and evolve with the times, so it's interesting that most other rock bands don't wanna go there, but I think I get why. Rock music, especially in its more modern iteration, has always had a bit of an underdog mentality. I'm not sure if you could relate to this, but for me, I often felt like a little bit of an outsider in high school because I wasn't listening to the most popular stuff like hip-hop or pop music.

So, I think the unwillingness to accept change from a fan perspective comes from feeling the need to hold onto this thing that always felt like it was exclusively yours. You don't want these people coming in and stepping on your sacred ground, so to speak. Eventually, though, you grow up and realize how immature that mentality, but sadly, so many bands just haven't grown up. So, what makes this crop of bands so fascinating is how they just don't seem to care about any of that outside stuff, and I think it's because, like you say, they're playing with sounds that really are timeless. For me, personally, it's very much a new world for me, but because I want so badly for this genre to succeed, mainstream or otherwise, I feel like I really need to champion these bands. They're easily the most exciting thing I've heard about in a long while.

I guess my next question is, why do you think this is happening, and how well do you think it can actually do?

Bradley: What’s interesting is that I’ve seen a small select rock bands over the last five years, give or take, that have some influences in the past, but they’re not the kind of rock music that would essentially be viable. One band that I championed for years ago was Temples, especially their debut LP, Sun Structures. I didn’t care for their newest album as much, but their debut is amazing. It’s a slice of 1960s psychedelic-rock that fans of The Beatles or The Zombies would absolutely love, but that’s the thing. This style of rock isn’t viable or accessible in the mainstream. Fall Out Boy remains one of the most important and successful rock bands, because they know what people want, and they know how to make a catchy, accessible, and ear-worming tune. That’s what vocalist Patrick Stump is very good at. I don’t think most rock bands would ever dare going pop, and it’s because of that underdog mentality that you bring up, since you see what happens when rock bands dare to go pop. Fans are outraged, and that’s when they throw out the idea of the band “selling out.” I wrote a whole piece on why Fall Out Boy never sold out, but that’s besides the point. That’s why people get so angry over bands changing their sound, getting more popular, and reaching a bigger audience.

You bet I can relate to that, bbygurl, because I used to listen to metalcore, post-hardcore, and “emo” music during my high school years. Just as the “rock kids” were ostracized during their high school years, the emo / scene kids were, too. I don’t feel like any sort of genre, sound, or band is “mine” anymore, because I listen to so many kinds of music, so I’m all for artists and bands experimenting and doing something new with each release, but I understand that mentality. That doesn’t mean I like it when fans act incredibly entitled, as well as the bands themselves, but that’s another discussion for another day, since that’s not what this is about. You could make an argument, however, that bands being so reluctant to change is part of why rock is dying, since that’s essentially what I said earlier, but I digress. Like I’ve said earlier on, too, I’m a classic rock guy, so I recognize the eras, sounds, and bands that these newer bands are being influenced by, but this is a whole new world for someone like yourself that has only merely dipped his toes into the classic side of rock music. I’ll go out on a limb and say this whole “resurgence” is happening, because there are a lot of older kids / young adults (right around our age, I’d say, early to mid 20s) that were raised on “classic rock” by their parents, and they want to make a difference within the world of music. A lot of musicians might also have the same mentality that we do, at least in the sense that rock music needs some kind of “wake-up call,” so what better idea than to look to the past?

In regards to this resurgence catching on, let alone sticking around, I feel as though it’s going to a bit slow to start off. Some of these bands have been around for years, such as Rival Sons, but a lot of these bands are very, very new. They’ve only released an album or two, and some haven’t even released a proper full-length yet (Greta Van Fleet have only released an EP, and a double EP that features that EP, plus four more songs, for a good example as to what I mean), so when these bands start to build their catalogues, that’s when I think that more people might start noticing. It all depends on how well these bands and labels can market to fans, too. It all starts within the rock scene, so the biggest question is whether or not these bands could appeal to a “tr00 rawk” audience. If and when that happens, it would be a matter of time before these bands start to cross over. I can totally see a band like Greta Van Fleet crossing over in some respect, since their sound is essentially a modern day Led Zeppelin. That’s another thing, too, that I wanted to briefly bring up. A lot of rock fans are middle-aged and older, since they grew up between the 1960s and 1980s, so they remember a lot of classic bands, albums, and songs much more fondly than kids today. That’s an audience that these bands and labels should try to tap into, too, because those are also fans that don’t really like how rock music has been sounding in the last twenty years. This is similar to stuff that they remember from back in that time period, so if these bands can make a plea to older fans, as well as appeal to younger fans that want something new and exciting (whether they’re familiar with “classic rock” or not), that’s when I think these bands can really make a push.

Jake: You know, that's actually a great point. We often think about music fans in terms of teenagers and people our age, and not so much people in their 30s or 40s. Often, people who hit that age tend to be set in what they like, and that's totally okay. But, using Greta Van Fleet as an example, there's a lot of great potential to tap into something that could bring both sides together. You have the middle-aged fans who love that sort of sound already, and you have people our age who are always tapped in to new music. I think that could be what leads to these bands having some staying power.

Bradley: That’s the brilliance of a band like Greta Van Fleet, I think, because their sound isn’t necessarily modern, but it invokes a lot of comparisons to Led Zeppelin, since that’s basically the band they sound like (they definitely have a modern flair to their sound that makes it sound like Led Zeppelin traveled through time, though, and I really like that). I can see older people, whether they’re in their 30s, or they’re in their 60s, latching onto a band like this, because they can say, “Oh, hey, that sounds like Led Zeppelin, and I really like them!” Older people are definitely set in stone with what they like, and there comes a time when they don’t really venture out for newer music, but I feel like this new crop of rock bands could be what brings both younger fans that are tuned into newer bands, like you mentioned, and older fans that were around during the “golden age” of rock music, since they love plenty of bands that sound like these newer acts. It just depends on how well these bands and labels are able to market themselves, or at the very least, we need a few bands that can spearhead this movement. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats has a new album coming out in a few weeks, and you best believe I’m extremely excited for that record, but that’s a band that could easily bring this type of rock music even more success than it’s already had. Greta Van Fleet is another one, too, especially since their buzz is bubbling up. They haven’t released a debut album yet (although their most recent release is 32 minutes), so when they release a debut LP, I feel like they’ll be able to get a bigger audience. I’ve been doing some research, trying to find more bands in that vein, and I keep seeing Greta Van Fleet, in particular, on a lot of “bands to watch in 2018” articles, because a lot of people are getting the same idea. If we can have a few bands that spearhead this movement, they can break through the glass ceiling, so to speak, and that’s when this “resurgence” could really take off.

Jake: While I think all of this is very exciting, I do wonder what this means for the veterans of the era most people think of as rock music today. You know, the Breaking Benjamins and Chevelles of the world. Breaking Benjamin has a new album coming out in April that I'm extremely excited for, and I think it's gonna do really well, so I think we can have a world where both the veterans and these newer crop of bands can happily co-exist. I for one would love that, because I can have both Breaking Benjamin and Nathaniel Rateliff put out great albums that will cover both areas. What do you think about that, though? Can both types of bands co-exist, or will we see some of the old guard be pushed out?

Bradley: A lot of these newer bands are looking to the past, and if we’re going to be talking about whether or not these bands will break out, you have to look at how music was at the time, too. I’ll bet my money on some of the veterans of rock, at least within the crop of modern hard-rock bands, being pushed out, especially the lesser known and less successful bands, because history always repeats itself. The same goes for music history, too; 1980s new wave, disco, and pop music made a lot of the 1970s hard-rock, prog-rock, and funk music somewhat obsolete. Not that people didn’t like it, or there wasn’t a demand for it, but when new wave, disco, and pop music really started to take off, that’s what the mainstream wanted. During the late 70s, a band called Boston was going to release their debut LP in 1976, but their label thought that hard-rock music wasn’t going to sell that well, considering that disco’s popularity was in full-force. Well, that ended up being wrong, as Boston’s self-titled debut album is one of the best-selling albums of all time. What I’m trying to say is that, yeah, I think these two styles can coexist, but I do think a lot of the lesser known and more obscure bands will be pushed to the side. That’s what always happens. A genre might be very popular for any certain amount of time, but something else always comes around the corner to take its place, whether it’s because that original sound has run its course or something new and innovative came around. The latter, I’d like to believe, is what happened with new wave, because it was a sound that no one really heard before. That really took off, and because of that, guitar-based music was starting to lose its sheen. The veterans of rock definitely remained, because those bands already had the success to always remain relevant in some way, shape, or form, but a lot of newer bands and artists came out of the woodwork. That’s what I think will happen here, too; a handful of the reliable veterans will be sticking around, because they have the success and name recognition to always be in the limelight, but a lot of these lesser known bands will most likely swept under the rug.

Jake: You know what? I'm perfectly okay with that. I think for the genre to have the resurgence we're talking about, some of these bands need to be pushed out. I mean, do we really need Three Days Grace anymore? Not in their current form, anyway, but that's what I think will happen as well. Bands like Breaking Benjamin will still be able to do their thing and thrive, but we can't have the decaying corpse of a once-great band roaming around, so I'm all for a band like Greta Van Fleet or The Night Sweats coming in to take their place.

Bradley: That’s exactly what I think will happen, because that’s what happened many times over. Hell, look within rock music itself, if you want something more “domestic” than the pop takeover of the 1980s. Psychedelic-rock fell out of favor with the mainstream in the early 70s, and what took its place? Blues-rock and hard-rock. I mean, yeah, you can argue the foundation of heavy metal took its place, too, but strictly speaking within rock music, blues-rock, hard-rock, prog-rock, and glam-rock (mainly in the latter half of the 70s, thanks to Queen, Bowie, and artists like that getting really popular) dominated the charts for awhile. That’s what I mean about the lesser known and/or obscure bands being swept under the rug, so to speak, but even the bands that no one really cares about anymore will get that treatment, too. I’d say that Three Days Grace is a big name still, but they really aren’t. They went through a major lineup change that affected most peoples’ feelings on the band, so they lost a ton of fans during that shakeup. Bands like Breaking Benjamin, Shinedown, Chevelle, and all of these other bands are definitely going to be sticking around, I can’t imagine them disappearing any time soon, but I can see plenty of lesser known bands and the infamously awful ones being swept aside for these fresh faces.

With that said, the best way to close this piece out, at least for me, would be to talk about some rock bands that we’re really into, whether they’re veterans that have been around the block a few times, or newer acts that are merely in their infancy. I won’t be going into a lot of detail, because I’ll be posting a top eleven list of my favorite modern rock bands that I’ve been really into at the moment, but I wanted to highlight a couple that I’ve already talked about, as well as a couple that I haven’t talked about in this piece at all. I’ve mentioned Greta Van Fleet, a hard-rock / blues-rock band that sounds just like Led Zeppelin, and I’ve also mentioned Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, a band that mixes soul, blues, rockabilly, and folk music, but a couple of other bands that I’m really hyped on are The Record Company, a garage-rock / blues-rock trio that released a Grammy-nominated album a couple of years ago that no one really knows about, and Goodbye June, a blues-rock / southern-rock band that could appeal to both “tr00 rawk” fans and country / southern-rock fans. What about you, bbygurl? What are some bands that you’re really hyped up on?

Jake: This is actually kind of a difficult thing to pin down, because as we discussed, my side of the rock scene doesn't really have any buzz-worthy bands outside of the reliable favorites. I could go on and on about Chevelle and Breaking Benjamin, both bands who have new music coming out this year, or even other, slightly smaller bands, like Thousand Foot Krutch (their vocalist is supposed to be putting out a hip-hop project this year, actually), but I've been there, done that. Then, it finally hit me; Saint Asonia. They're a band made up of some of the most well-respected musicians in rock, namely ex-Three Days Grace vocalist Adam Gontier and Staind guitarist Mike Mushok, so the guys have been around the block, but the band as a whole is still relatively new. They put out their debut, self-titled album in 2015, and I loved it, but it was a fairly basic effort that showed a group of guys landing back on their feet after being out of the game for a while. I think the follow-up, which should be coming out this year, will be the one to really push them over the edge. These guys collectively have made some of the best music in the genre over the last two decades, and now that they have an album under their belts, I think they're gonna come back with something really special. I'd keep an eye on them, bbygurl, because I think they're gonna swing for the fences this time around.

Bradley: That’s gotta be exciting, huh? You could talk about the same bands, especially the veterans of the genre, but there are some new and fresh faces, although this band is more or less a rock “supergroup.” That’s cool all in itself, since you don’t see those too much anymore. There was one last year with members of Sleater-Kinney and REM, which I need to look more into, but I think we’re in an exciting time for rock. The tides are finally turning. The veterans are bands that have truly stood the test of time, and they keep making great material, but there are a lot of fresh faces that could (and really should) shake up the state of the genre. Only time will tell how everything goes, especially since a lot of these bands are very, very new. To coincide with this list, I’ll be posting a top eleven list of my favorite modern rock bands, so definitely take a look at that. I’m talking to anyone reading this, too, because while I mention the few bands I’ve talked about here, I talk about some more, too, and these are all bands worth watching, because they’ve put out some great material and they’re on the verge of really blowing up in the rock scene. It’s kind of funny, because if you asked me a year ago if I’d be interested in listening to modern rock, I’d say no, because a lot of these bands just don’t cut it for me. That style of “hard-rock” isn’t my favorite, or really a kind that I like much, but with a lot of these newer bands being influenced by the 1970s blues-rock / hard-rock scene, I’m all over it, so I’m very excited to see where the genre goes from here.

#rock #rock music #modern rock #three days grace #the record company #nathaniel rateliff & the night sweats #greta van fleet #led zeppelin #creedence clearwater revival #1970s hard rock #hard-rock #blues-rock

2 notes · View notes

zodiacoracle · 7 years ago

Text

Scrapbook: In which I declare my love for the umpteenth time

[This was originally targeted to be published in October, but shit happened and I don’t think I will ever finish this now, so I’m posting it as is.]

[No, that’s not the kind of title I would have used if this was a proper, finished post.]

Have you played the demo for Octopath Traveler? It's a gorgeous looking game, and it looks fun. It's shaping up to be the Romancing SaGa of what Bravely Default was to classic Final Fantasy. On top of that, the music is wonderful. Too bad I don't have a Switch.

I hope you didn't think I'd write about my impression on the game.

Here's the thing though: I love Yasunori Nishiki, the composer. I love his music with my whole being, more than anything that isn't charming Spanish Flamenco or Tango inspired music. Oh, it just happens he has written such songs too. As you can see, he's really high in my list, I think he's one of the best composers I've heard in recent years.

And so with Octopus Octopath being the topical thing at the moment, there's no better time to talk about him than now! And I'd like to introduce a couple of his songs!

>> Profile

Yasunori Nishiki was born in Kanagawa, Japan, on July 10, 1985. Nishiki graduated from Film Scoring program of Tokyo College of Music in 2009 and joined KONAMI directly after.

His first contribution as a composer in Konami was for Quiz Magic Academy VII, released in 2010. He continued composing for the series until the ninth installment, Quiz Magic Academy Kenja no Tobira, after which he left the team to be the sound director and main composer of then-new Oreca Battle. He later also became the sound director of another game related to Oreca, the arcade version of the mobile game Dragon Collection.

Behind the alias Vivian, he first debuted in Bemani, Konami's line of arcade music games, in REFLEC BEAT colette, 2012, with the song guerre à outrance. His latest appearance in Bemani to date was in beatmania IIDX 23 copula, 2015. It is currently unknown if he will use this alias again in the future.

He also made contributions to a number of console titles, such as NeverDead and Frontier Gate - which he composed almost half of the soundtrack of.

In 2015, Nishiki left Konami and started freelancing. Outside of Konami, he took on various projects, working as a composer/arranger or synth manipulator amongst others. The projects he has written composition for include SHOW BY ROCK!!, the theme song of Fate/Extella, the anime adaptation of Granblue Fantasy, and the latest, Square Enix's Project Octopath Traveler.

So, I've been following Nishiki's activities ever since I first heard Vanity in jubeat saucer. That was in December 2012? Five years ago? How time flies! Around that time was also when I started getting into QMA music.

By the way, I mentioned Romancing SaGa above, but did you know Nishiki made an official rearrangement of SaGa music for SE's Lord of Vermillion Arena? It was SaGa Frontier 2, though.

Anyway, wow, Octopath Traveler. I didn't think the day when he would be recognized by so many people would come so soon, but here we are. I'm so proud, so happy for him. It makes me want to introduce some of his songs that may share the same style as Octopath.

I like to take any chance I can get to introduce his music to people, particularly his Oreca songs, and this time isn't any different. If you have ever wondered why Oreca in particular, there are two reasons why. The first is, Konami has uploaded a lot of Oreca songs to YouTube, making it easier to share them the legal/officially approved way. The second is, in my opinion, Oreca was where Nishiki shone the brightest in his time in Konami.

Nishiki worked on Oreca ever since it was first developed then released in 2012, and he kept composing for it until he left Konami in 2015. Within that time period, he composed and arranged about 150 songs for this little game alone, his songs making up more than half of its whole soundtrack at the time of the writing of this post.

The reason behind the huge number of songs in this game is because, being a constantly updated arcade game, it has lots and lots of boss characters, and almost every one of them has a battle theme of their own. It also has a decent number of stage music and such, but those character themes make up most of the game's soundtrack.

This is where Nishiki showed his true potential. Back when he was in QMA sound team, he only composed orchestral songs. In Oreca, he still was fond of orchestral songs (and still is until now), but to realize the vision of unique character battle themes he branched into other genres, revealing the versatile artist in him. From electronic and pop to rock and metal, from ethnic and classic sounds to modern ones, from mellow to aggressive - he covered everything he could.

[Then my plan was to review some of his Oreca songs, but, well. Below are the songs I considered to be included in this post, along with some short comments instead.]

[Of course I wouldn’t have included everything if I finished this post. Choosing is hard, however.]

Great Sorcery Mimi & Sisi's Theme: A safe song that played straight to his strengths, but a solid one nevertheless. It’s unexpectedly complex for a pair of goofy mice. I adore the sense of adventure in this song.

Mage Knight Chaos Magica's Theme: I’ve always felt Nishiki’s music might have some baroque roots, then this song came.

Deep Sea Emperor Barolo's Theme: This is the last boss. That was the feeling I got when I first heard this song.

Underworld God Anubis' Theme: I wanted to include this just to make a point that his dominantly electronic work can be as strong as everything else by him.

Kudlak's Theme: I like to call this song “Faux Castlevania” but really. It’s a song for a vampire character, I won’t be surprised if it was intentional. Oh, and, Nishiki rearranged Beginning too for Oreca. Despite being Faux Castlevania, this song is still brimming with his usual details.

Thin Ice Knight Dante's Theme: A rearrangement of a popular song for a popular character - popular between Oreca players, at least. A cold and lonely arrangement of an elegant song.

Purgatory Emperor Ares' Theme: Menacing, dark, and moody. It also has another version featuring Yuma Ito’s solo violin. You can never have enough of his violin when it comes to Nishiki’s music.

Great Djinn Ifrit's Theme: One of his more atmospheric songs, but still reeks off boss smell.

Dragon themes in a separate category, as he took one composition and rearranged it plenty of times. I’d argue the dragon theme is his most important legacy in Oreca. I want all Konami composers to remix the dragon theme.

The original dragon theme, for reference.

Ocean Stream Dragon's Theme: I think I picked this for similar reason as I picked Mimi & Sisi’s theme: it sounds like such a delightful adventure. It also has a lot of castanets, I like it when he use castanets.

Great Tree Root Dragon's Theme: Nishiki described this song as “dark fantasy” and I agree. This whimsical rearrangement is one of my favorite dragon themes.

Dragon Emperor Fei Long's Theme: I think I added this into consideration mostly to add variety. It also sounds really pleasant.

Celestial Dragon Bahamuth's Theme: Bahamuth and this song was to debut in WHF, an important event for the game, he gave everything into it and even incorporated real choir as he was in such high spirit. I will always remember about this little story. It turned into a grand song fitting of Bahamuth, and everything was worth it.

Divine Dragon Kuzuryu's Theme: My original intention was to only include songs that are officially uploaded, but I wanted to give an exception for this song badly. It’s easily one of the best dragon themes. It may not sound like a dragon theme at first, but if you listen closely you’ll hear that this is a dragon theme through and through. Here the usual melody takes a backseat while a new one gives a new soul into the song. Sachiko Watabe’s serene vocals definitely bring the song to life. I salute her, especially for that difficult chorus. Also, I vaguely remember Nishiki saying something along the line of “vocal song for BGM is unusual, especially in arcade games” but I don’t remember where. Twitter? Somewhere else? Eh? Anyway I’m glad he went for it anyway because that decision led to this song coming into existence. Thank you.

[Thank you for everything. Sorry I couldn’t finish this, I will do better next time.]

[I will always support you wherever you are.]

#scrap #eritalk #yasunori nishiki

3 notes · View notes