#I completely missed this back in 2010

[knifefightandchill]

0kay listen, I can’t understand taking a character, and reducing them to just their trauma. Nothing else. Making even the most mundane stuff they go through so much of a struggle for the rest of their life, that they might as well just become one big squonk.

Basically turning them into a walking talking victim complex. there is a personality there outside of the crying emoji, i promise you. 

[grayve-mistake]

I was on here at 11 years old! I just didn't have an account yet lol (I made this one at 13). Anyway it would be entirely mlp ask comic reblogs

If you guys were on here at 11 years old what would you be posting about

[johnbrand]

New Favorite Brew

With @misctf, continuing their Gridiron Brew series

“David, c’mon we’re gonna be late for yoga!”

Matty shouted, grabbing his mat as he launched himself out of his room. He knew that the pair should not have gotten drunk last night. You could not squeeze that many drinks into twinks skinnier than rails! Matty had stopped while he was ahead–although not super far ahead as he was still a bit hungover–but David had gone hard. He had even pounded back a beer that he had gotten from the liquor store for free before they had arrived at Matty's apartment. They had exclusively drank hard seltzers since graduating a year ago, so when the cashier handed them the beer as a part of a promotion, they laughed. 

But now rushing towards the door, Matty knew they would be doing anything but laughing if they missed this yoga class. They had spent a fortune on securing their spots months ago.

“Ready to go, David?”

“What's goin' on, bro?”

Matty stood in shock for a moment at the naked man on his couch. The brute was large, hairy, and old–probably twice the size, girth, and maturity of Matty. This uber-masculine mammoth of a creature was not at all what Matty had been expecting, causing him to audibly squeak.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, bro?” His voice was deep, resonant and gruff. “Oh yeah, sorry you know how I get when I go too far. Would always lose my clothes by the end of the party, just reliving the good old frat days I guess.”

“I…uh…” Matty stuttered, but quickly recovered himself. Dave was right, this always happened when he got too drunk. “I’ll see you later, I have to get to my yoga class.”

“Sure,” Dave yawned, not even bothering to cover himself as he cracked open another can of beer as his breakfast. “Good luck or whatever, bro!”

Matty left, his bewilderment rapidly evaporating into being simply unfazed. By the time he was in his car, the whole situation was already behind him. Matty’s class was the only thing on his mind. In moments, he had his Top Hits of the 2010s playlist blasting through his earbuds. He luckily made it on time to his class, and afterwards was exhausted. Ripping his sweat-soaked shirt off as soon as he was in his car, Matty took a moment to recover and laid back in his seat. When he opened his eyes again, he was surprised by the metallic glare hitting his eyes.

Twisting around, Matty was surprised to find a can of beer in his car. He presumed it had been misplaced from his and Dave’s shenanigans last night at the liquor store; Matty’s bag of seltzer’s and Dave’s bag of six-packs. The can in question must have slipped out. Curiously, Matty picked up the can, the aluminum exterior slightly warm from having sat in the sun. The label was not anything special, brown with an old-timey football player on the front. The words “Gridiron Brew” were somehow delivered in the most masculine and yet generic font possible.

Feeling a sudden thirst, and growing interest as to why Dave was so addicted to the stuff, Matty carefully cracked it open. He did not know what he expected, but that first sip of standard cheap beer tasted like…cheap beer. There was nothing remarkable, no mouthwatering trigger that made Matty instantly understand why Dave was so obsessed with the stuff. It was probably not fair that he was having it warm, but Matty-

BOOOOOUUUURRRPP!

Matty clasped a hand over his mouth as quickly as possible, his face flushing scarlet. But before the embarrassment had completely resided, his hand moved down to his stomach. His glistening abdominals were cramping up, tightening in on themselves violently underneath his touch. Through his bare skin, it almost felt to Matty as if they were vibrating.

“Oh god…” Matty groaned. Suddenly, the tightness Matty was feeling was softening. Underneath his finger tips, his stomach began to expand, pushing out a thin layer of fat over his abs. A second coat was applied on top of the first, and then a third onto the second, until eventually the bulge emerged over his waistband. And his tight pecs soon jutted out onto his muscle gut with both fat and muscle, their taut nature now loosened dramatically. Frantically, Matty read over the tagline of the beer, his arms and legs bulking up proportionally with his midsection. “Gridiron Brew is for the ex-jock in you!” 

“Nnnhh…broooo…!” Matty pleaded to the open space, his voice taking on a lower and rougher nature. An aggravating warmth began to swarm his already overheated body, testosterone surging as it caused hair to erupt across Matty’s frame. From his dense pubes sprang forth a current of hair tracing over every available inch of his body. Nothing was spared, and Matty could not decipher through his agony if the masculinity upgrade was something to be reviled or cherished.

Matty prayed for his distress to end, gripping his gut and the beer can as his face rounded out, widening before disappearing underneath a thick beard. Age lines and wrinkles carved onto Matty’s once-clean skin, which was quickly growing a bit leathery as his body rapidly aged. Eventually the pain began to fade, and Matty could do nothing beside inhaling and exhaling slowly. Eventually, he realized he had been subconsciously flexing his pecs.

It was a strange sensation, feeling the slabs of meat bounce up and down, but at the same time it was…calming? Matty could not describe it, having never done it before. But then why did it feel so familiar? Feeling his girth, relishing in his massive size. It had been something he had enjoyed since he had discovered it back in high school, right? But that felt like years ago. Was it years ago? Matt nodded slowly–it must have been. Yeah, back when they played good music like the stuff on his Top Hits of the 90s playlist. 

Matt tossed back another swig of his new favorite brew before starting the car. He continued to relish his past glory days, never to realize that moments before he had been living those cherished days, and that they were not mere memories of decades past.

[bella-goths-wife]

Yandere Vees x platonic reader

Vox, velvette and Valentino x reader

Warnings: Valentino

Okay so you know how I move through stories so much because I hyperfixate on something and become obsessed with it? Well guess who watched the hazbin hotel show after watching the pilot episode years ago. And I saw so much yandere potential.

So let me know if you enjoy this and if I should make more.

You were quite a modern soul, with you dying around the 2010s

And you died quite young at the age of 18

So when you get to hell your pretty scared and confused, with no one around who could help you

So you did what you could to live, by surviving off scraps and sleeping rough on the streets

That also leads you into a life of crime as you relayed on robberies and mugging people to get enough cash to afford to eat for the week

But on day you make the grand mistake of trying to mug an overlord

Vox was simply trying to avoid paparazzi by going through the back alleys, that’s until he hears loud music out of no where

See, when you got to hell you were given your own special ability the same way the others had

Your ability was Turntablism

Which essentially means you could manipulate and create new sounds from your environment, similar to how a DJ can use turntables to manipulate and create new music from existing sounds

This means you could silence or enhance sounds around a demon and that you would be able to create a sound from the environment, such as loud music, and it would be able to discombobulate or entertain the demons around you

So you silenced your footsteps before surprising vox by blasting loud rave music to confuse him as you grabbed his wallet and phone before hightailing it out of there

Of course that doesn’t work, vox watches you through the phone as he decides how to deal with you

He sees you climb into your ‘home’ which is in fact a cardboard box built around a dumpster with a small pit outside of it for fires

You intrigued him for some reason and he thought there was no harm in watching you for a few days before he decided what to do with you

He watched how you used your ability to survive and how you were actually white street smart

Eventually, he came to a decision

He appeared to you and claimed that you owed him a debt for stealing his wallet, before offering you a job as his assistant with a room in the vee tower in exchange for you soul

You were extremely cautious of him so you denied his deal, until he points out the fact that you were a young homeless girl who had stolen from a well known celebrity who could easily have killed you

So you shake his hand and your soul is officially voxs

He stuck true to his word and gave you a small room near his in the vee tower, and even if it seemed small to him it was the biggest room you’d ever slept in before

Vox explained the daily tasks he wanted you to be able to complete while you worked there and explained how he wanted to combine his hypnosis with your ability to make it so that the voxtech jingles would be more persuasive and would make more buyers come in

You nodded your head with the doubt that it would work stuck in your mind, but vox owned your soul now and you had to do what he said

He eventually introduced you to his business partners, velvette and Valentino

Velvette could not give less of a shit about you and just barked her coffee order at you

Valentino on the other hand tried to offer you a job in his studio but vox warned him that your soul was already owned, so val settled on just pouting while ordering you to fetch him some lunch

You worked with them for a few months and it wasn’t all bad

Sure, they were all demanding people who would hurl abuse at you if you got something wrong, but vox provided you with food, shelter and clothes so you couldn’t complain really

They all grew accustomed to your presence, so much so that when you weren’t around they had the strange feeling of missing something from their daily routines

Being vox’s assistant was hard because it practically made you all of their assistant, because we all know the vees share everything

So some days you’d work closely with vox, and others you’d be in vals dressing room to assist him with scripts or choosing actors for certain projects (vox told val that you were too young to be in the studio, which you were eternally grateful for)

And other days you’d be with velvette as she scoffed for the millionth time at the fashion designers attempts to please her

Velvette liked having another young eye to look at the designs, she’d never admit that she respects your opinion in a million years though

Eventually after working for the vees for a few months, you held a reputation in the offices

You’d hear your bosses workers whisper the nickname ‘pet’ as you trailed after one of the vees with a schedule in hand

You hated it but you decided to just put up with it, it’s not like you had any authority to be able to do anything about it anymore

But the whispers of your coworkers reached the ears of your bosses and they all seemed to have a shocking reaction

When they sat down and talked about it, they realised that they do view you as more of a pet than a worker

And how they seemed to need you around in some capacity to be able to go about their days normally

That’s when their obsessions began

And you had a long, dark road ahead of you

This is probably trash 😭

But this is just a rough idea of what I’m trying to do so I have loads more ideas

Let me know if you’d be interested :)

[wheel-of-fish]

The Phantom of the Opera on TV (and streaming)!

I've been sitting on this list for two years in hopes of making it complete, but I realized if I wait that long I'll never post it. Let me know what I've missed!

Please note that I haven't watched all of these in their entirety and can't attest to their quality/content.

Adaptations

1983 - The Phantom of the Opera (TV movie starring Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour)

1990 - The Phantom of the Opera (TV miniseries starring Charles Dance, Teri Polo)

Parodies

1961 - The Woody Woodpecker Show, S4. E13, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1962 - Beany and Cecil, S1 E12, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1966 - That Girl, S1 E14, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1968 - The Pink Panther, S1 E17, "Cherche le Phantom"

1971 - Night Gallery, S2 E4, "Phantom of What Opera?"

1974 - The Phantom of Hollywood (TV movie)

1987 - Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, "The Phantom of the Theater"

1989 - Julie & Carol: Together Again, "Phantom of the Opry" sketch (TV special starring Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews)

1989 - Babar, S1 E13, "The Phantom"

1989 - Count Duckula, S1 E21, "Fright at the Opera"

1991 - Night Court, S9 E1 & E2, "A Guy Named Phantom" (clip)

1993 - Doug, S3 E5, "Doug's Huge Zit"

1994 - Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio (TV movie starring Shari Lewis)

1995 - Goosebumps, S1 E7, "Phantom of the Auditorium"

1995 - Wishbone, S1 E37, "Pantin' at the Opera" (part 1 | part 2)

1998 - Anatole, S1 E9, "The Phantom of the Cheese"

1999 - The Triplets, S5 E9, "The Phantom of the Opera"

2000 - Are You Afraid of the Dark?, S7 E10, "The Tale of the Last Dance"

2000 - SpongeBob SquarePants, S2 E22, "Something Smells" (clip)

2010 - Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, S1 E7, "In Fear of the Phantom"

2015 - All Hail King Julien, S2 E15, "The Phantom of Club Moist"

2019 - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, S2 E6, "If You Give a Mouse a Pumpkin"

2019 - The Tom and Jerry Show, S3 E76, "PhanTom of the Oompah"

Character appearances

1981 - The Munsters' Revenge, TV movie (clip)

1984 - Diff'rent Strokes, S6 E16, "Hooray for Hollywood - Part 1"

1997 - "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" music video (HD version)

2009 - Saturday Night Live, "Save Broadway" sketch

2010 - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, S6 E7, "Who Got Dee Pregnant?" (clip)

2010 - Ghouls, multiple episodes (clip)

2020 - Saturday Night Live, "Airport Sushi" sketch

ALW musical references

2006 - Family Guy, S4 E23, "Deep Throats" (clip)

2012 - Glee, S3 E18, "Choke" (clip)

2015 - The Late Late Show, Sept. 10: "James Corden joins the cast of The Phantom of the Opera"

2015 - The Late Late Show, Sept. 23: "Crosswalk the Musical: The Phantom of the Opera"

2016 - The Goldbergs, S4 E8, "The Greatest Musical Ever Written" (clip)

2018 - Jeopardy!, Feb. 15 show (clip)

2018 - The Late Late Show, June 18: "Crosswalk the Musical: Andrew Lloyd Webber classics"

2019 - The Umbrella Academy, S1 E1, "We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals" (audio)

2020 - Dash & Lily, S1 E4, "Cinderella"

2020 - The Crown, S4 E9, "Avalanche" (clip)

2022 - The Masked Singer, S8 E4, "Andrew Lloyd Webber Night"

Other

1991 - David Copperfield: Secret of the Phantom of the Opera (TV special)

[wirewitchviolet]

I miss games conveying a sense of Bigness

As you know if you watch my twitch streams, I play a lot of games, and games from a lot of eras, and there's a whole bunch of industry trends you pick up on from certain time periods. The one I really feel like talking about was a definite thing from oh... 1998 through... 2010 or thereabouts? Basically the aughts, give or take a couple years. Or if you prefer, the first two Playstations' run and a bit of the third. It was a period where games in general were really committed to feeling Big.

It feels a little weird to say that when major releases are priding themselves on stuff like measuring how much disk space they need in terrabytes and maps that sprawl out everywhere, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Games trying to feel Big is more of an attitude thing, and ironically enough I'd say it fell out of fashion almost immediately when Open Worlds became the new big thing. We hit a point where people actually made the maps for their games super big (even if most of that space was just kinda vast stretches of unremarkable rocks) so there's no more need to fake it, right? But faking it was kinda great.

I was thinking about this a lot playing the Resident Evil 2 remake, and comparing it to the original PSX game. See the original Resident Evil was set in a spooky mansion out in the middle of nowhere, but RE2 was the Bigger Better Sequel. So now we have a zombie outbreak happening in a whole major city, not just this single mansion. And how do we accomplish that? Do we actually model hundreds of buildings and have a big meandering adventure through all of them, or even a good swath? No not at all. Let's compare the actual maps side by side...

[There WAS a full map of RE2 here it was causing the post button to bug out. Look it up on your own?]

It's a little bigger. There's maybe a dozen more total rooms? But mostly, it's a smoke and mirrors thing. We've still got one big primary location, an animal-filled hike to a side location and back, and an underground science facility, but it feels like we've increased the scope to an entire city. The first playable moments have us out on the streets of the city, objectively in a few quick hallways, but presented as streets packed with dozens of crashed cars, raging fires everywhere, dead bodies littering the streets, and what again feels like innumerable zombies feasting in scattered packs. Once inside, arms of several zombies outside will reach in clawing at you, or later in the game finally breaching through. The remake completely loses that feeling. It feels like there's maybe a dozen zombies out on the streets.

Not to focus on just the one game though. How about GTA3? Remember how even when you're just on the first island, it feels like you're exploring this vast sprawling city?

Here's a more elevated angle from about the same point. I'm looking at this with noclip.website by the way, it's a really cool little toy.

The actual map is LAUGHABLY small. But it FEELS huge. They were really careful to avoid straight roads, and place a couple big vision blocking buildings, even if they're basically just a cube or two so that when you're actually on the ground, it always feels like there's so much more around you. Have another side by side, and a rough estimate of what's visible on the ground in the bird's eye.

RPGs around this time were also having a lot of fun playing with scale comparisons. FF7 is the obvious go-to. The world map is on par with any other in the series, but Big Cities are presented as such, making it very clear that you're just seeing parts of a single district in Midgar, really just the main street in Junon. Dragon Quest 8 had this very bold idea to keep the same visual scale on the world map as in the streets of the towns, with forests made of actual individual trees.

And I'm not even getting into the biggest elephants in the room. Are you old enough to remember how mind-bogglingly sprawling Hyrule Field felt? Maybe a bad example when sequels have kept that focus on selling their worlds as staggeringly Big. Shenmue? Objectively, looking at this map, there's not much there, but damn if I don't feel like this was a real town I lived in for a while 20 years ago. It's the way the detailing gets finer and finer the closer you get to Ryo's bedroom, where you can open every drawer, turn on every light, turn that orange in your hand, you know? I believe that bus you take to the docks has to stop in several other neighborhoods like this one.

And of course, then there's the one other series, maybe worth mentioning, perhaps.

Years later I'm still just speechless.

Again though, I don't actually WANT games with worlds as big as some of these feel. There just isn't the time and the money and the ability for a creative team not to burn out to fully realize that in a handcrafted caring way. I want some kind of inverted Plato's Cave, where it feels like there's a vast breathing world out there, but I'm really in a small cozy space watching masters of the craft put on a shadow puppet show.

[the-girl-wh0-cries-w0lf]

You're waiting for a train...

Robert Fischer x Cobbs Daughter!reader

*COMPLETED*

*This will follow the plot of the 2010 film 'Inception'*

description - Y/n, the daughter of the thief Dominic Cobb and the late Mal Cobb, joined her father on the run. Knowing her fathers innocence, she couldn't bear to be without him, so she gave up on her architecture degree and followed him into the world of dreams. They do jobs together and, even though Cobb worries about the amount of danger he's putting her in, he'd rather her be with him in the dreams rather than on the outside carrying his name like a brand. In the latest job they are given, Cobb searches to find peace and Y/n is confronted with a man who tugs on her heart and infiltrates her dreams.

*reader is 20*

a/n - welcome to my first multi-chapter fic and it is with a character from the talented Cillian Murphy! I watched Oppenheimer the other day, so I've been rewatching his filmography and I obviously came back to Inception. Inception is hands down my favourite film and I think it was this performance that put Cillian on the map as an actor of tremendous talent!

a/n 2 - each chapter will have it's own warnings but the general ones are SPOILERS! (also should there be a taglist for this?)

Series Word Count - 37k

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling."

A Leap of Faith

To Build Cathedrals

Meeting Your Mark

Painted Windmill

A Lesson in Planning

Conscience Makes Cowards of Us All

Damsel in Distress

A Son's First Hero; A Daughter's First Love

Mr Charles and Miss Nobody

You Knew?

Go To Sleep, Miss Y/n

Couldn't Someone Have Dreamed of a Goddamn Beach?

Lies Are Weak Foundations

The Kick

Come Back To Reality

I Dreamed We’d Grow Old Together

[shy-taylorsversion]

Want You Back | Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Inspired by Want You Back by Maisie Peters

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Summary: Over a year ago, Y/n started hunting with the boys. Her and Dean's friendship became more than anything she ever had before. Then he hurt her like never before. The worst part was she didn't really care.

Takes place somewhere in season 6 after Sam got his soul back. Flashbacks are during season five.

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Cursing (minimal), canon-level violence, few innuendos, and mentions of things. Reader is kinda sad and desperate. Angst. no happy ending :(

A/N: Hi!! After a year of trying to write a complete fic to post, I finally did it. Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors, I relied on Grammarly lol Also I had no idea how to write the action scenes but tried my best. I really don't know if this is worth much but I had so much fun writing sooo I hope you enjoy it!! (gif not mine)

March 2010

  Y/n’s phone buzzed, drawing her attention from the hunter drunkenly blabbering in her ear. They’d just wrapped up a quick hunt, a werewolf somewhere in northern Montana. She didn’t even really know the guy but Bobby had given him her number to ask for help. She agreed, not really having anything more to do. He was fine for a hunter, other than he never shut up and was getting too handsy for her liking, and him being on his fifth drink wasn’t helping. 

She opened the message, not recognizing the number. Bobby had to stop handing it out to whoever.  

           “Hey, Sweetheart. Whatcha up to?”  

The phone fell into her lap. There was only one person she ever let get away with calling her that, or anything really, and he didn’t come around often. 

           “Depends, who is this?”  

    The response was almost immediate. 

          “Don’t do me like that, Y/n”

 She could almost see his stupid grin on the screen and had to look away to control the heat rising in her face. Within five seconds and two texts, Dean Winchester had turned her into a giggling schoolgirl with a crush. 

          “I’m at a bar, what do you want?” 

         “Ah, a girl after my own heart. Which one? I wanna see you.” 

In any other universe, she would have assumed he had ulterior motives. She had the first few times she’d received that text but ended up spending the night hiding her disappointment. He only wanted to see her. He’d meet with her wherever she was. A bar, a motel, a diner.   

They’d spend hours talking about everything. She’d tell him stories of her recent hunts and the hunters she was stuck helping. He’d tell her of whatever they’d been facing. On rare occasions, when it was super late and they were sprawled on her bed, in a half-drunken stupor, he’d tell her about Sam or their dad. He’d mention their childhood and what he was put through. One night, he even mentioned a girl named Cassie, he skirted around details but Y/n understood. 

   They’d fall asleep like that, on top of the covers of a dirty motel bed. The next morning, he’d take her to breakfast, hug her goodbye, and then he was gone. 

     Her phone buzzed in her hand again. 

       “I miss you.” 

Her blood ran cold as she stared at the screen. He’d definitely never said that before. They just never went there and maybe this wasn’t him going there but it was different. Without another thought, she sent him the address. 

Present, April 2011

  “What Dean did wasn’t ok, you know that right?” Sam said through the phone. “He never should’ve left like that. We just really could use your and Bobby’s help on this case.” 

  Y/n sighed in response. What could she even say? That she knew, that she understood. That it still didn’t matter because even through all of the anger and hurt, she’d take him back tomorrow. 

  Not that he’d ever actually been hers. It was only half a spring, barely two months. 

It didn’t matter either way. There was a job to be done and she had to do it. She could put her feelings aside for a few days. 

 “He always left like that, not like I’m surprised.”  

   “Look, I’ve gotta go but please, Y/n, call us if you need anything. We’ll be there soon.“ 

 “Bye, Sam.” 

  The call ended, leaving Y/n leaning against the railing of Bobby’s porch. The early spring wind whipped around her and she hugged her flannel closer, looking out onto the empty road. 

   It had been over a year since she’d seen either of them. She knew of everything that happened to them. Sam going to hell and coming back without a soul. Dean, living a normal life for over a year with a woman and her kid. 

 Y/n didn’t know her, only hearing about the situation from Sam and Bobby in passing. She knew her name was Lisa and that Dean cared for her. Maybe more. She knew that Dean had promised Sam to live a normal life after he jumped into the cage. And she was happy that he got a year of peace. She was. 

   She could picture him helping in the kitchen, wearing an apron with flour smeared across his face. He’d probably set up family movie nights and weekend outings and birthday dinners. He’d been happy and okay. Against all odds, he had gotten out. 

    That didn’t stop the wave of hurt that washed over at the thought of him, all domestic and soft.  

 The click of the door opening pulled her out of her thoughts. Bobby stood there, a knowing look on his face.  

     “C’mon kid, let’s see if we can figure out something before those boys get here.” 

A few hours later, Y/n stared at the book in her lap. She’d been rereading the same paragraph for thirty minutes. Every time she’d get drawn into the book, the house would creak or the wind would blow and she’d be snapped out of it. 

   She kept waiting for the door to open, for footsteps to trail down the foyer and into the living room. She couldn’t even begin to prepare for what the next few days were going to be like. Her only plan was to act as normal as possible, which was already proving to be difficult. 

  A pit formed in her stomach, there was a lump in her throat and her head was clouded. The whole room was hazy and it felt like she was watching herself exist.

    She didn’t even realize she was crying until something wet hit her hands and slid onto her jeans. She quickly wiped her eyes and tried to focus on the book again. The lines blurred together as more tears filled her eyes.  

    God, she was sitting here crying over some guy. She was a grown woman, she had to get over this. It was pathetic at this point. 

   “You know, what Dean did was wrong. Leaving like that, not telling you what happening.” Bobby said, walking into the room, a stack of books in his hands. “I love the kid but he’s a real dick sometimes.”

       He meant well but she swore if one more person said that Dean had done bad, she was going to go crazy. 

    She knew that. More than anyone, she knew. She was the one who spent months hunting with him, helping him and Sam figure out how to save the damn world. They’d spent nights wrapped up in each other, more than ever before. Farther than before.  

  She was the one who woke up to an empty bed with no trace of him anywhere. He never responded to a call or a text. Never even let her know he was alive. 

  He’d left like an assassin. 

   Part of her couldn’t even blame him. It probably had been for the best because if he’d told her what the plan had been, she’d have begged. 

     In the end, he’d got to be a coward and she salvaged some amount of self-respect. 

 “I know, Bobby.” She said, giving him a small smile, “I know.” 

The door creaked causing Y/n to jump, earning her a concerned look from Bobby. 

  She smiled at him again, trying to reassure him. She could tell he’d been worried about her lately. He was justified in it. She’d been on edge and closed off for the last year and a half. 

   She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She’d known these boys for the better part of her life, it wasn’t a big deal. 

     Sam rounded the corner first, entering with a slight grin. His eyes immediately found hers and without warning he pulled her off the couch and into his arms. 

   Y/n let out a surprised laugh as her feet dangled off the ground and the life was squeezed out of her.  

   “I missed you too, Sam.” She said, unable to hold back more laughter, “Put me down now.” 

   Her feet hit the floor and Sam stepped back. She looked him over, still smiling. 

     “I’m so glad you’re back.” 

   “Yeah, me too.” 

A set of footsteps grew louder causing Y/n to look up, only for her to meet two green eyes. 

  The breath was knocked out of her and she was all too aware of the pit in her stomach again. 

Ignoring the pairs of eyes on her, She spun on her heel to face Bobby.   

    “Let’s get started?” 

March 2010 

“I call shotgun!” Y/n yelled as they walked out of the diner and took off towards the Impala.

   She was probably being unfair. She’d barely shared the passenger side in the few weeks she’d been with the boys. Sam was getting huffy about it, she could tell but she enjoyed the view more from the front.  Sitting in the back she’d miss the way Dean’s hands looked gripping the steering wheel, the way his lips moved as he mouthed the lyrics to whatever was on the radio, or the way his eyes would flicker to hers for just a split second. 

 Dean had also finally let her DJ and she didn’t plan on giving that rare privilege away anytime soon.

   “C'mon, dude. It's my turn.” Sam whined, “My legs are starting to cramp.” 

Sam beat her to the car which wasn’t surprising since he was literally the size of one. She was close to giving in when an arm landed on her shoulder. Dean nudged Sam out of the way, ignoring his protests, and opened the door. 

     “Sorry, Sammy.”  Dean’s eyes never left hers as she slid into the seat, “Need my Darlin’ by my side.” 

Present, April 2011

   Cracked wooden planks creaked under Y/n’s feet as she followed the boys and Bobby into the abandoned house. It was pitch black. She blinked her eyes, trying to adapt to the lack of lighting.  

According to Sam, a nest of vamps had been holed up there for weeks. They’d started leaving a trail of bodies, teens who’d come through as a dare or curiosity. She didn’t know the exact numbers racked up in that time but it was enough for Sam and Dean to ask for help. 

   Dean motioned for them to split up, two taking the downstairs and two going up. She went to follow behind Sam who had taken off into the next room but Bobby beat her to it. She would’ve fought back but it wasn’t exactly like she could cause a scene right then. 

   She followed Dean up the stairs, cringing every time the stairs groaned underneath their feet. 

Dean slowed as he hit the final step before a long, dark hallway. Y/n was a step behind him. His body nearly covered her. She shifted to the side to peer around him. 

  Both raised their machetes, trying to keep their breathing quiet as they waited for any sign of movement.

    A crash came from down the hall. Dean started towards the sound, Y/n following close behind. The complete darkness put them on edge. Being minus one sense in a house of at least ten fanged bastards, not fun. 

      The floorboard creaked behind her causing her to flip around, just in time to dodge the first vampire of the night. 

       She swung her machete, hitting its arm. Distracted, she brought down the weapon. Its head hit the floor. 

        Dean yelled out from behind her. She flung herself around to hear him fighting off, what she guessed was three on his own. Her presence seemed to catch the attention of one of them because it charged at her. 

   She dodged, the vamp lunged again grabbing her by the arm. She twisted out of its grasp. Using the angle to her advantage, she swiped her leg around, knocking it off balance. Its head rolled away as its body hit the ground. 

     She wiped the sweat from her forehead and turned to try to find Dean. She still couldn’t see him but she could hear him panting a few feet away.

She was yanked forward. Hands gripped her forearms tight enough to leave bruises and slammed into the wall. Her head buzzed on impact and she forced herself to stay upright. Its fangs grazed her neck and then its head dropped to the floor. 

   Dean stood in front of her, so close she could feel him breathing, rather than hearing it. Without thinking, she reached out to him and landed on his arm. She went to pull away but his other hand grasped her wrist, holding her in place. 

“Thanks.” She breathed, “You good?” 

“Yeah, You?” 

She wished she could see him, make sure he was being truthful. He didn’t exactly have the best track record with honesty. But in the dark, she had no choice but to trust him. 

    “I’m fine.” There were definitely bruises forming in her arms and her head was still spinning but she’d had worse.  

   Dean’s hand dropped her wrist. She ignored the deflated feeling in her chest and dropped her arm back to her side. 

  Without warning, he ran his hands over her arms and up her shoulders. She tried to pull away but he didn’t stop. 

    “What are you doing?” She whisper-yelled. 

“I literally heard you hit the wall, Y/n,” He said, running his hands over her head, checking for any bumps. 

“I am fine.”  She tried to swat him away but he grabbed her wrists mid-air and pulled them to his chest.  

    The air was humid around them. She heard him panting. Leather and sweat invaded her senses. Any focus she had before vanished. 

He was here, touching her, after so long. 

  Silence enveloped them. The only noise was their panting. 

 This was wrong. Sam and Bobby were probably fighting for their life downstairs and here they were, doing whatever this was.

  She was about to pull away when a loud yell came from downstairs. 

   The moment was broken. They took off down the hallway and stairs. Staying close to not get lost in the dark. 

  They hit the last few steps as a vampire, charged at them. 

 Dean swung his machete and it fell to the floor.  

 They moved further into the first floor of the home, finding Sam and Bobby fighting off at least four vamps each.  

   They split up, him going to Bobby and her going to Sam.  

     None of the vampires were aware of her yet. She grabbed the syringe of deadman’s blood out of her pocket and plunged the needle into the closet to her. 

  Now they knew she was there.

 Two turned towards her giving Sam time to take down his remaining one. 

   Both charged at her, hissing. She ran in between them.She flipped around, slicing the blade in an arc. The one on her left doubled over at the impact. 

    She swung. 

The right one lunged at her. She pivoted and cut the blade up. 

Its head hit the floor. 

She looked around the room, a slight beam of moonlight flooded the house now. She made out Sam helping Bobby up from the floor, right as Dean took down the last vampire. 

   The room was silent other than everyone trying to catch their breath.  

Dean’s eyes found hers. She forced herself to look away. Sam interrupted the non-moment. 

“Time for drinks?” 

Y/n and the boys decided to go out. They were leaving soon but everyone needed time to wash off and get ready. 

   She dragged the black liner across her eyelid, double-checking to see if it smeared the shimmery brown eyeshadow she’d already put on. The cracks in the old mirror made it kind of hard to perfect the make-up but it would have to do.  She already changed from her bloodied hunting clothes into a clean pair of jeans with a simple tank top. She didn’t own much and traveled with less. 

“Broke mirrors are bad luck, ya know?”  

  Dean leaned against the doorframe, flannel pulled taut around his crossed arms. 

She ignored the pit that had reappeared in her stomach and continued applying her lipstick. She flipped through ideas for a response. She could yell at him to get out or cry about how much he hurt her. Instead, she opted to act like nothing was wrong. 

   “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who broke it.”  She said, shoveling her makeup back into the bag, still never meeting his eye. She stood and gathered the rest of her stuff into a neat pile on her bed. Her back was completely towards him. 

    She heard him walk into the room and the door clicked shut. 

“Y/n, look at me.”  

She turned around and looked up at him. Her eyebrows raised like he was boring her. In reality, she was struggling to breathe. Her hands shook and a lump was stuck in her throat.  

 Her eyes glanced over his face. His jaw was set but eyes were soft.  She knew where this was going. 

  Dean took a deep breath before starting.  

“Look, what I did-” 

“Do not finish that sentence, Dean Winchester.” She spat. 

“I just-”

“No. You don’t get to say anything. You don’t get to say that what you did was wrong or how sorry you are. You don’t think I don’t know that what you did was wrong? Everyone keeps telling me that. Bobby, Sam and now you. They kept telling me how horrible of you that was like it wasn’t me. Like I wasn’t the one who spent months with you, like I didn't help you figure out how to stop the fucking apocalypse. Like I didn’t stitch you up after every hunt or spend every car ride next to you. Like I wasn’t the one who would hold you after you woke up screaming or it wasn’t me who spent every single night in your fucking sheets.” 

 Every ounce of refrain she’d worked to keep was gone. Hot tears were streaming down her face as her eyes bored into his. He didn’t try to interrupt her but his jaw twitched and body tensed. 

  “Like it wasn’t me who woke up two months later to an empty bed. You were gone, Dean. You left without a word. No text, no note. Nothing. You fucking left me. And then I found out you were with some other girl for a year? So yeah, I know that what you did was bad.” 

Somewhere in her speech, she’d moved close enough for their chest to touch. Her finger was stabbing into his chest.  He didn’t move, was barely breathing but she wasn’t finished. 

   “Maybe it was cheap to you, or maybe it was some fling to pass the time but it was real to me. It was all I had. You were all I had.” Her voice broke at the last word and she dropped her hand. Her head fell as she cried. Over a year of built-up heartbreak exploding in one moment was too much. 

     His hand found hers and placed it back on his chest. She looked back up at him, his other hand reaching out to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes as his thumb wiped away the remaining tears. 

    “Do you want to know what the worst part is?” She whispered, eyes still shut. “I’d be yours again if you wanted. If you asked. How pathetic is that?” 

      “Y/n.” 

She opened her eyes to look at him despite her embarrassment.  

  “You are anything but cheap or pathetic.” His voice was thick and his eyes were glassy. She’d seen him in so many different states but she’d never seen so much emotion written across his face. 

   “Ask me then. Ask me to come with you.” 

His expression darkened and he dropped his hand from her face. He took a step back and looked away. 

   “It’s not that easy.” He said, shaking his head. “It's never that easy.” 

She let out a bitter laugh. 

 She wasn’t even surprised. She should’ve been disappointed or furious but she was just over it. She was tired and desperate. And if she couldn’t have him, he needed to go. 

  She wiped a hand down her face and glanced back into the mirror assessing the damage her outburst caused. She started wiping off the messed-up liner before starting to reapply. Dean stood behind her, brows furrowed in confusion. 

    “Get out.” She said without hesitation, her voice as steady as possible.  

He opened his mouth as if to speak but shut it. He walked towards the door but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. 

   “For what it's worth, I am sorry.” 

The buzz of conversation filled the packed-out bar. Sam found them a small booth in the corner and was now talking about a new piece of lore he’d found about some Egyptian god. Most of the time, she loved hearing what he had to say but right now all she could focus on was Dean's hand trailing up and down the woman’s hip. He never even sat down with them, finding himself a spot at the bar, next to a pretty blonde. She’d watched for half an hour now as he grinned at the girl, whispered in her ear, and bought her a drink. 

  She wanted to puke or cry or both. She decided to get drunk instead. 

She went to take a sip of her beer only to realize it was empty. Motioning to Sam she was going to get another, she slid out of the booth and made her way to the opposite side of the bar from Dean. 

   She planned to order a shot of some vodka and another beer but she couldn’t catch the attention of either bartender.

  A body bumped up against hers causing her to stumble. A hand wrapped around her waist to catch her. She almost jerked away but she looked up to find a familiarly unfamiliar pair of dark green eyes and dark blonde hair.  

   The man was by far the prettiest she’d seen all night. 

 “I am so sorry, It's packed in here. Isn’t it?  Nowhere to stand.” He had a slight southern drawl and a boyish charm about him. 

 “It is. Can’t seem to even order a drink.”  She smiled at him.

 “You see, now that had to be fate or something because I was just wantin’ to buy you one.” He grinned and waited, almost seeing if she’d allow it. His hand was still on her but she found she didn’t really mind. 

 The room was fuzzy and she could only make out the man in front of her. Even then, he was a little hazy and she had no idea what he was saying, only that his mouth looked pretty as he said it.    

  Y/n didn’t know how long it’d been since the handsome stranger volunteered to feed into her night of drunkenness or even how many she’d had so far. She vaguely remembered him buying her the first shot and then the second and maybe a third. They made small talk, she gave some bullshit story about what she did for work and where she was from. Somewhere in between she had a fourth, fifth, and sixth one. 

 And somewhere between the seventh and now, she’d lost track of Dean. She didn’t even know if he was still there. She did know that the new guy made her feel ok, at least for now. His hands never left her and the drinks never seemed to end.

  She could barely remember the events of the day. Maybe by tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember any of it, or at least a girl could hope.

But right now, she didn’t feel like crying or throwing up as long as she didn’t think of it. 

   She decided in her drunken haze that maybe this was what she needed. So when the stranger asked her if she wanted to leave, she agreed. And when he leaned down to kiss her, she let him.

[aimfor-theheart]

on the death of skirt chasers

a small think piece on how media has been stripped of romance, sex appeal, and charm over the last 20 years using trigun and trigun stampede as an example—specifically looking at this through wolfwood and vash as a tangible way to track this evolution.

it’s interesting and also unsurprising to me that trigun stampede stripped vash and wolfwood of some of their biggest personality traits from the 98 anime, which were their love of women. to be frank— they were both dogs lol

but vash was this sort of forlorn man who, meryl, upon meeting him, adequately describes him by asking, “are you the type of man to fall in love right away and get your heart broken?” or something to that effect. and he says what, no way! and then proceeds to fall in love with the next beautiful woman he sees and gets his heart broken by the end of the episode. and we were seeing this constantly throughout the show, then even in the later movie of the early 2010s badlands rumble.

and the 2000s are notorious for dubious, sexist comments from men who are women-obsessed. our action movies are packed with sexy female characters only existing for romance, etc. etc. we’re sort of at the tail end of it in 2010. so arguably, vash is almost worse here to me? he’s really pushy and borderline inappropriate with how stubborn he is. in a way that, while persistent in the 98 anime, he had a little more boyish charm to him and they never made him so forceful.

and then the middle and later 2010s happen where marvel takes over our action movies and romance and sex and womanizers are all but killed—originally, in reaction to the sexism. it’s important to note that the me too movement picks up in the middle and later 2010s too and becomes well-known by the end of this decade. and in response, i think we nosedive into puritanical ideas and sentiments by the end of the decade.

now we must always remember when a movement (ie feminism in this case) has a critique or reaction that catches on (the me too movement, men being pushy and overly flirtatious in our media, treating women in action movies only as sexy romance options, or showcasing toxic dynamics that subconsciously tell men to keep chasing her, even if she’s not interested) then the oppressive force (patriarchy in this case) will always transform as a way to take control again (bringing puritanical ideals back—we shouldn’t be showing sex or romance in our movies. we should not be consuming any dark content, ever. etc etc.)

i believe we killed romance and sex in the later 2010s because of an over correction of our sex-obsessed media of the 2000s—or rather, the patriarchy over corrected in order to maintain control. there were critiques of the 2000s that were valid, but like i said, the oppressive force will always transform to maintain power, so we hit puritanical beliefs again. “political correctness” if you will.

(capitalism surely has something to do with this too and it’s definitely along the lines of—be more beautiful and even hotter, but your body is not a sexual one, but a visual or capitalistic one. etc. etc. another topic, another time.)

and so here we are and we don’t really have any flirty or womanizing characters like we used to. and we see this very plainly in 2023s trigun stampede, where they have completely stripped vash and wolfwood of any of those traits.

and i sort of miss them? i think a 2023 forlorn vash who loves great and hard and gets his heartbroken would not be a bad thing—one who is effected and charmed by women, maybe rather than nearly stalking them like in the 2010 movie. i think it shows another piece of vash and that is quite literally that he wears his heart on his sleeve. and he gets hurt for it, endlessly. more than that there is a little more whimsy to him? and aching. he’s this lonely man who wants love so, so badly.

now, wolfwood in 98 version was less this forlorn chaser and more this suave womanizer. many jokes are made where vash is chasing a girl that wolfwood sorta already has if he wants her. but he’s this lone wolf who leaves everyone a little high and dry. (of course until the end—with milly —where, in a very classic lone-man way, he dies after leaving a woman with his child. the tragedy being that when he was ready to stop roaming and settle down with her and meryl and vash, he dies, thus still leaving everyone). and i mean even his appearance in the 98 version—big chested with low-buttoned shirt, shaggy hair and stubble. he looks like a 90s rockstar. he looks like your lone cowboy. he’s reminiscent of spike from cowboy bebop who has a similar charming air to him that never leads anywhere because he’s destined to be solo. the unintentional, intentional womanizer.

then the later 2010s hit and we kill the charming womanizer. (tony stark kills the womanizer. another topic, another time.)

and now in 2023, wolfwood is completely stripped of any of his sex appeal and suave personality that the 98 and even 2010 version of him oozed naturally. gone is the cool, tough, lone wolf. replaced with a sort of boy-bandish, squeaky-clean, semi villain, semi hero. he’s crass and he’s snarky and he’s supposed to be rough around the edges. but he doesn’t look it? and he lacks the charm that 98 wolfwood naturally had. which aided him when he talked to kids—he was softer. charming. people liked wolfwood, even when he was being crass. he knew how to talk to people, maybe even how to con them when he wanted.

2023’s wolfwood is tough to get along with. and while fun sometimes, i think it does lose this…romanticism to him? there is a softness in wolfwood that is sorta lost in 2023s version. while we get a fuller and better written backstory, we sort of lose this other aspect of him. we’re supposed to infer from his backstory and his relationship to his brother that he is a good man, just one put in a horrible situation, always had bad luck. whereas the 98 version, we saw that wolfwood was good with kids. gentle. women loved him—he charmed rowdy men, even swindled when he needed to. we saw that there was something good in wolfwood, even if he remained mysterious.

all this to say i do miss the romanticism? i do miss these men being…romantic? flirty? charming? and not even in a fangirl way but in a…humans are romantic creatures way? we are sexual beings? and romance and sex can tell us a lot about characters and their personalities.

and i think looking at vash and wolfwood in particular is a good way to track how we lost this romanticism in our media over the last 20 years—we literally see it in them, in their remaking in 2023, where they are stripped of it.

i think the mid and later 2020s will continue to return to it in some way—we already see this with the resurgence in romance novels (or these dark fantasy romance novels gaining popularity) and even fandom spaces being more “mainstream” on social media. but in late stage capitalism (and thus late stage patriarchy, racism, etc.) it looks a little like a carnival mirror of romance and sex to me.

another topic, another time. etc. etc.

[makapatag]

Tactical Combat, Violence Dice and Missing Your Attacks in Gubat Banwa

In this post I talk about game feel and decision points when it comes to the "To-Hit Roll" and the "Damage Roll" in relation to Gubat Banwa's design, the Violence Die.

Let's lay down some groundwork: this post assumes that the reader is familiar and has played with the D&D style of wargame combat common nowadays in TTRPGs, brought about no doubt by the market dominance of a game like D&D. It situates its arguments within that context, because much of new-school design makes these things mostly non-problems. (See: the paradigmatic shift required to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, that completely changes how combat mechanics are interpreted).

With that done, let's specify even more: D&D 5e and 4e are the forerunners of this kind of game--the tactical grid game that prefers a battlemat. 5e's absolute dominance means that there's a 90% chance that you have played the kind of combat I'll be referring to in this post. The one where you roll a d20, add the relevant modifiers, and try to roll equal to or higher than a Target Number to actually hit. Then when you do hit, you roll dice to deal damage. This has been the way of things since OD&D, and has been a staple of many TTRPG combat systems. It's easy to grasp, and has behemoth cultural momentum. Each 1 on a d20 is a 5% chance, so you can essentially do a d100 with smaller increments and thus easier math (smaller numbers are easier to math than larger numbers, generally).

This is how LANCER works, this is how ICON works, this is how SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD works, this is how TRESPASSER works, this is how WYRDWOOD WAND works, this is how VALIANT QUEST works, etc. etc. It's a tried and true formula, every D&D player has a d20, it's emblematic of the hobby.

There's been a lot more critical discussion lately on D&D's conventions, especially due to the OGL. Many past D&D only people are branching out of the bubble and into the rest of the TTRPG hobby. It's not a new phenomenon--it's happened before. Back in the 2010s, when Apocalypse World came out while D&D was in its 4th Edition, grappling with Pathfinder. Grappling with its stringent GSL License (funny how circular this all is).

Anyway, all of that is just to put in the groundwork. My problem with D&D Violence (particularly, of the 3e, 4e, and 5e version) is that it's a violence that arises from "default fantasy". Default Fantasy is what comes to mind when you say fantasy: dragons, kings, medieval castles, knights, goblins, trolls. It's that fantasy cultivated by people who's played D&D and thus informs D&D. There is much to be said about the majority of this being an American Samsaric Cycle, and it being tied to the greater commodification agenda of Capitalism, but we won't go into that right now. Anyway, D&D Violence is boring. It thinks of fights in HITS and MISSES and DAMAGE PER SECOND.

A Difference Of Paradigm and Philosophies

I believe this is because it stems from D&D still having one foot in the "grungy dungeon crawler" genre it wants to be and the "combat encounter balance MMO" it also wants to be. What ends up happening is that players play it like an immersive sim, finding ways to "cheese" encounters with spells, instead of interacting with the game as the fiction intended. This is exemplified in something like Baldur's Gate 3 for example: a lot of the strats that people love about it includes cheesing, shooting things before they have the chance to react, instead of doing an in-fiction brawl or fight to the death. It's a pragmatist way of approaching the game, and the mechanics of the game kind of reinforce it. People enjoy that approach, so that's good. I don't. Wuxia and Asian Martial Dramas aren't like that, for the most part.

It must be said that this is my paradigm: that the rules and mechanics of the game is what makes the fiction (that shared collective imagination that binds us, penetrates us) arise. A fiction that arises from a set of mechanics is dependent on those mechanics. There is no fiction that arises independently. This is why I commonly say that the mechanics are the narrative. Even if you try to play a game that completely ignores the rules--as is the case in many OSR games where rules elide--your fiction is still arising from shared cultural tropes, shared ideas, shared interests and consumed media.

So for Gubat Banwa, the philosophy was this: when you spend a resource, something happens. This changes the entire battle state--thus changing the mechanics, thus changing the fiction. In a tactical game, very often, the mechanics are the fiction, barring the moments that you or your Umalagad (or both of you!) have honed creativity enough to take advantage of the fiction without mechanical crutches (ie., trying to justify that cold soup on the table can douse the flames on your Kadungganan if he runs across the table).

The other philosophy was this: we're designing fights that feel like kinetic high flying exchanges between fabled heroes and dirty fighters. In these genres, in these fictions, there was no "he attacked thrice, and one of these attacks missed". Every attack was a move forward.

So Gubat Banwa removed itself from the To-Hit/Damage roll dichotomy. It sought to put itself outside of that paradigm, use game conventions and cultural rituals that exist outside of the current West-dominated space. For combat, I looked to Japanese RPGs for mechanical inspiration: in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and TACTICS OGRE, missing was rare, and when you did miss it was because you didn't take advantage of your battlefield positioning or was using a kind of weapon that didn't work well against the target's armor. It existed as a fail state to encourage positioning and movement. In wuxia and silat films, fighters are constantly running across the environment and battlefield, trying to find good positioning so that they're not overwhelmed or so that they could have a hand up against the target.

The Violence Die: the Visceral Attacking Roll

Gubat Banwa has THE VIOLENCE DIE: this is the initial die or dice that you roll as part of a specific offensive technique.

In the above example, the Inflict Violence that belongs to the HEAVENSPEAR Discipline, the d8 is the Violence Die. When you roll this die, it can be modified by effects that affect the Violence Die specifically. This becomes an accuracy effect: the more accurate your attack, the more damage you deal against your target's Posture. Mas asintado, mas mapinsala.

You compare your Violence Die roll to your target's EVADE [EVD]. If you rolled equal to or lower than the target's EVD, they avoid that attack completely. There: we keep the tacticality of having to make sure your attack doesn't miss, but also EVD values are very low: often they're just 1, or 2. 4 is very often the highest it can go, and that's with significant investment.

If you rolled higher than that? Then you ignore EVD completely. If you rolled a 3 and the target's EVD was 2, then you deal 3 DMG + relevant modifiers to the DMG. When I wrote this, I had no conception of "removing the To-Hit Roll" or "Just rolling Damage Dice". To me this was the ATTACK, and all attacks wore down your target's capacity to defend themselves until they're completely open to a significant wound. In most fights, a single wound is more than enough to spell certain doom and put you out of the fight, which is the most important distinction here.

In the Thundering Spear example, that targets PARRY [PAR], representing it being blocked by physical means of acuity and quickness. Any damage brought about by the attack is directly reduced by the target's PAR. A means for the target to stay in the fight, actively defending.

But if the attack isn't outright EVADED, then they still suffer its effects. So the target of a Thundering Spear might have reduced the damage of an attack to just 1 (1 is minimum damage), they would still be thrown up to 3 tiles away. It matches that sort of, anime combat thing: they strike Goku, but Goku is still flung back. The game keeps going, the fight keeps going.

On Mechanical Weight

When you miss, the mechanical complexity immediately stops--if you miss, you don't do anything else. Move on. To the next Beat, the next Riff, the next Resound, think about where you could go to better your chances next time.

Otherwise, the attack's other parts are a lot more mechanically involved. If you don't miss: roll add your Attacking Prowess, add extra dice from buffs, roll an extra amount of dice representing battlefield positioning or perhaps other attacks you make, apply the effects of your attack, the statuses connected to your attack. It keeps going, and missing is rare, especially once you've learned the systematic intricacies of Gubat Banwa's THUNDERING TACTICS BATTLE SYSTEM.

So there was a lot of setup in the beginning of this post just to sort of contextualize what I was trying to say here. Gubat Banwa inherently arises from those traditions--as a 4e fan, I would be remiss to ignore that. However, the conclusion I wanted to come up to here is the fact that Gubat Banwa tries to step outside of the many conventions of that design due to that design inherently servicing the deliverance of a specific kind of combat fiction, one that isn't 100% conducive to the constantly exchanging attacks that Gubat Banwa tries to make arise in the imagination.

[adachimoe]

Hello! Fairly recent follower here who has been rabidly consuming your various post about P4/Adachi. Thank you for sharing so many cool scans/resources and for providing insightful analysis! I was wondering, have you ever written up anything about Adachi's relationship with Dojima and Nanako--and if not, would you mind sharing your thoughts? I keep seeing people say he doesn't actually care which is kind of wild to me!

Hi there! Glad you enjoy the content!

To date, I've only posted about his relationship with Nanako and Dojima once before, and it's a breakdown of the brief line when he first introduces himself to Nanako and the protagonist at the Dojima house.

This line was unfortunately completely different in English. The line was rewritten, the delivery is very flat and unplayful; Adachi sounds more like he feels threatened/scared of Dojima. But the Japanese voice acting and what he's saying (pretending to be Dojima's wife lol) and the situation made me feel that, even in April, Adachi must have had some level of rapport with Dojima.

Like you, I've also seen some insane shit. E.g. "At the hospital, I bet Adachi leans over Dojima's bed and whispers about how he hopes Nanako dies"??? What the hell that is an insane take LMAO. I've also seen people say that Adachi's arc in Arena Ultimax and what he says about Dojima in his narration means that Adachi got "woobified". Which, like, what?

Honestly, a lot of this also seems to go hand in hand with people not understanding the plot of Persona 4. Some people walk away from this game thinking that Adachi is the one who put Nanako into the TV (???), or that Adachi "picked" Nanako to be on the TV and thus targeted by Namatame (???). Thus, they interpret him to be more antagonistic towards Dojima and Nanako. Persona fans are not beating the "can't read, didn't play the game" allegations.

I think Adachi's relationship with Dojima and Nanako in the games can be described as, "Not really understanding what you have until it's too late". It's not something he necessarily sought out (e.g. he wants to be a hotshot detective with a hot wife, not "Dojima's Bud"), so he takes it for granted. After you beat up Adachi in the TV World and bring him out to Junes, his expression and inability to say anything when he finds out that Dojima hasn't completely given up on him really speaks for itself. And this continues into Arena Ultimax.

The 2010 Persona 4 audio drama also helps build upon his relationship with Dojima and Nanako. He is involved (and even pats himself on the back for his participation lol), yet at the same time, he also un-includes himself: When he tells the protagonist that he helped Dojima *spend time with his family*, it's like he is putting up a boundary between himself and them, counting himself outside of their family circle.

Golden further builds on this with his Social Link and his new interactions with Nanako. He clearly cares enough to watch his mouth around Nanako, catching himself before he says something that might upset her. Plus the extended letter he sends at the end, he really does spell out that, "Wow I kinda miss you all now huh funny how that works".

And if you've not seen it yet, the Adachi Q&A from the Stalker Club has some meta answers from Atlus regarding why Adachi took to Dojima when he first came to Inaba. I get the impression that Adachi is not a person who has many people that care about him, or feels like there aren't many. Thus the gestures Dojima showed him -- especially after a low point in his life, having been transferred to a small city and all -- probably meant a lot to him.

If you follow the line of thought about Adachi's cat / mouse game being bullshit, his real goal being ruining Namatame's life, and him not ever watching the Midnight Channel, then Adachi's Social Link seems complimentary to the sequence of events on November 5th.

Under this lens, it would mean that Adachi doesn't know Nanako was on TV, and he understands (or has assumed) that the Investigation Team have been saving people but he doesn't quite know the precise details. Naoto calls and reveals that Nanako is gone. Adachi shows some hesitancy towards Dojima jumping to action, and he's hesitant to let the Investigation Team go. But he does eventually cave and lets them leave. Not just because he wants them to find Namatame (which would be beneficial to him), but also because he now understands what's happened and knows that Nanako is in danger.

On the flip side, I'm not huge on the Golden anime's depiction of Adachi which puts a great deal of emphasis on his relationship with the Dojima family. While his relationship with them is certainly an undeniably important part of his character in general, the Golden anime changes his character in a way that I don't vibe with.

"Adachi willingly goes into the TV World without being exposed as the murderer due to feeling guilty about Nanako getting involved" is a very different character than "Dipshit suffocating in society while trying to get away with murder so he can still belong to society". Really, the Society!! thing, and how he just seems to feel stuck in the adult world; not advancing but not removing himself either, is a major factor as to why I like his character, and I feel that aspect of him was completely removed/downplayed/something for the anime.

Like, I found these 3 panels from the Persona 4 manga (which also adds in some emphasis on Adachi's relationship with Dojima and Nanako) to be more effective and poignant than whatever the Golden anime was trying to do. Even just the top panel by itself tells a story that someone might be able to discern things from without knowing anything about Persona 4. It is absolutely possible to depict this aspect of Adachi without fundamentally rewiring him.

Anyway this got long lol. Thanks for the ask!

[dollsorwhatever]

Blyth

Finally got my hands on this extremely weird and random Blythe clone that was manufactured by Winn Dixie to sell in their grocery stores in the early 2010's! I've been searching for one for years after seeing them in stores as a teenager, but it's all but impossible to find them anywhere secondhand due to the lack of identifying information on their boxes.

I love obscure Blythe clones, especially ones with vinyl heads and rooted hair so I have been trying to find one of these for a long time!

This is probably the cheapest and most potentially dangerous doll I've ever seen and I can't believe Winn Dixie got away with manufacturing and selling these lol

Despite being NIB, the wires in her body are starting to break through the rubber. her bracelets are also made of wires? She comes with a guitar that was clearly made to have a sound box and buttons inside, but it's just a hollow piece of junk and was broken in two halves on arrival.

Out of box and next to my Blythe collection!

Something I didn't notice back in the day is that they come with music boxes in their heads (which are completely unglued and come out entirely with a little tugging)! Mine doesn't work anymore, and the battery compartment is corroded so I didn't bother to fix it.

Normally I would have left this doll in her box for preservation purposes, but I see potential in her sculpt and couldn't resist the urge to take her apart and see if anything could be done to elevate her appearance a little bit. I removed her hair, popped out her eyes and removed her eyebrows and tossed her hideous body in the garbage.

Her head is significantly smaller than a Blythe and the sculpt is missing a few details, but it was definitely based on an actual Blythe sculpt which I find fascinating. Based on the shape of the mouth and the smaller eye holes, I believe this head was based on the EBL sculpt specifically. I popped her head on a Jenny body, gave her a wig and some eyeshadow and stuck some eye putty in her sleep eyes so that I could fix them into a permanent downward gaze because the wide eyes did her no favors:

I think she looks cute! You can see the Blythe ancestry in her sculpt but she has her own weird charm. This angle really proves that she was based on an EBL to me:

Super happy to finally have her and very pleased with how she turned out! Now to pray I find another one to keep NIB.

[strivia]

As someone who shipped Scollace back in the 2010s when it seemed impossible to find good fancontent for them, my inner highschool striv is downright delighted by the sudden surge of Scollace content.

I'm also amazed at the shows ability to both kick off a frenzy for the ship while also simultaneously giving us nothing for Scott & Wallace's friendship.

The complete lack of reaction we get from Wallace to Scott freaking dying and then later getting revealed to have been kidnapped/missing instead? I need to write some fix it fic I tell you.

[cantcompetewhereudontcompare]

A complete deconstruction: Louis Tomlinson is a terrible songwriter. Part II

In part one, I debunked this assertion that Louis' songwriting was "crucial" for 1D. That post, I know, was probably quite boring and full of statistics, but I think it was important to be able to go to the fun part now.

Now we get to prove that he's not a good songwriter in the slightest.

POINT 1. He can't play instruments

Louis Tomlinson has been in the music industry since 2010. He was in a band when he was a teenager and he auditioned for the X Factor twice before he got in (2008 and 2009).

Despite all of that, and the millions he's racked in and rubbing elbows with incredible musicians, he still cannot play an instrument proficiently.

I stopped paying attention to him when the band broke up, but I've actually been asking around and digging to see if I was wrong about this before sitting down to make this post. Turns out, I'm not.

For instance, he has never played an instrument in one of his albums, and he barely ever does his backing vocals. He doesn't do ANYTHING ELSE either.

These are the personnel credits for his first album. He didn't even play the tambourine in it. In fact, he only did background vocals in 1 song out of 12.

For his second album nobody bothered to transcribe the personnel credit to its Wikipedia page, so I had to manually check song by song on Genius. You can skip this list as it's super long and nobody cares. I'm adding it because I find it super funny that SO many people are involved in his albums and he's, well, not. But his fans will tell you he's the songwriter of the century.

Vocals:

Louis Tomlinson — lead vocals (all tracks)

David Sneddon — backing vocals (12)

George Tizzard — backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 14, 16)

James Vincent McMorrow — backing vocals (1, 7, 13, 15)

Rick Parkhouse — backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 14, 16)

Robert Harvey — backing vocals (2)

Stephen Sesso — backing vocals (4)

Theo Hutchcraft — backing vocals (10, 11, 12)

Musicians:

Alex Thomas — drums (10, 11)

Carlo Caduff — drums (8)

Christopher Illingworth — piano (11)

Dan Crean — percussion (3, 4), drums (3, 4)

Fred Ball — percussion (1, 7, 13, 15), keyboards (1, 7, 13, 15)

George Tizzard — piano (2, 5, 6, 9, 14, 16), acoustic guitar (2, 5, 6, 9, 14, 16), keyboards (5, 6, 16)

James Birt — drums (2, 5, 6, 9, 14)

James Vincent McMorrow — guitar (1, 7, 13, 15), drums (1, 7, 13, 15), percussion (1, 7, 13, 15), keyboards (1, 7, 13, 15)

J Moon — bass (1, 13, 15), guitar (1, 13, 15), percussion (1, 13, 15), keyboards (1, 13, 15)

Joe Cross — guitar (10, 11, 12), bass (10, 11, 12)

John Foyle — synths (1, 7, 13, 15), bass (1, 13, 15), guitar (1, 7, 13, 15), drums (1, 7, 13, 15), percussion (1, 7, 13, 15), keyboards (1, 7, 13, 15), piano (15)

Liz Hanks — cello (10)

Mike Crossey — keyboards (3), bass (3, 4)

Nicolas Rebscher — guitar (8), keyboards (8), bass (8)

Paul Walsham — drums (12)

Rick Parkhouse — electric guitar (2, 5, 6, 9, 16), bass (5, 6), bass guitar (16)

Robert Harvey — electric guitar (2)

Stephen Murtagh — bass (9)

Stephen Sesso — acoustic guitar (3, 4), electric guitar (3, 4)

Tobie Tripp — strings (6)

END OF BORING BLOCK OF TEXT

Anyway, this time around he didn't even do backing vocals on 1 track. I'm not saying he should play the cello or the synth, or even bass. I'm not saying he should do every instrument like an absolute prodigy, but the LEAST a MUSICIAN can do if they're this incredible of a songwriter is participate in any capacity aside from lead vocals. At least on one track. One instrument. The fucking tambourine. SOMETHING.

I checked his other singles (the ones that aren't on either of his albums), and aside from (shared) backing vocals on Miss You, he also doesn't have any sort of credit in any of them. He has 34 recorded tracks total (12 in his first album, 16 + 2 bonus tracks in his second one, and 4 standalone singles) and aside from the lead vocals (duh) he only does backing vocals IN TWO. And NOTHING ELSE.

For comparison's sake, in his debut album Niall plays guitar in 9 out of 13 tracks, in his second album he does background vocals in 9 out of 16 tracks, plays guitar in 6 out of 16, and acoustic guitar in two additional ones, and in his third album he does background vocals in 9 out of 10 tracks, and plays harmonica and piano in track 6.

In his debut album, Harry does background vocals on every track, plays guitar on track 4, and the omnichord in tracks 1 and 4. In his second album he does background vocals on all tracks except 11, plays the dulcimer on track 10, and acoustic guitar on track 12. In his third album he does background vocals on all tracks, plays the glockenspiel on track 10, keyboards on track 11, and the tubular bells on track 4.

And Niall and Harry are not exceptional, top notch, creme de la creme songwriters. I'm comparing Louis to them because they were his peers, have the same background, and had the same opportunities to learn their craft for the same amount of time.

I could also compare him to Shawn Mendes, who plays guitar and keyboard in his own albums. Or even to someone like Olivia Rodrigo, who played the piano in her debut album. Billie Eilish played multiple instruments in her latest album. Taylor Swift has become quite lazy, but she used to play multiple instruments in her albums. Adele plays instruments on her albums as well. So does Lady Gaga. Someone like The Weeknd plays multiple instruments in his albums.

Not every popstar plays instruments, but those who don't 1. aren't regarded as great songwriters and/or 2. do other things, such as producing or stacking vocals. Like, Ariana Grande isn't a huge instrumentalist, but she does her own vocal engineering, for instance.

If he at least played a single instrument live, we could look past this, but he's been in the industry professionally for close to fourteen years and he has never, not once, performed a song while playing an instrument.

He toured the fucking world TWICE as a solo artist and never picked up a guitar for a single song.

The most we've seen of him with instruments is idly stroking a guitar for a couple of seconds twice that I can find (here and here) and then he once, in 2012, played 15 seconds of a song by The Fray on a keyboard.

He has posed with guitars a bunch

And he has footage of himself looking forlornly into the horizon as he "plays" guitar, but that footage is muted while he talks about himself very seriously on top of it.

He also has an entire music video where he acts like he's playing piano on top of someone else playing it (Duck Blackwell), which would be all fine and good if he had actually ever even hinted at being good enough to play an entire song on the piano. Both Taylor Swift and Harry, for instance, have similar music videos (in Cardigan Aaron Dessner is playing piano, in Falling, Kid Harpoon is playing). But we know that Taylor and Harry both can actually play (and have both played piano or keyboard in their own albums as well, just other songs).

It's a Thing that he doesn't play instruments nor does melodies. His often writing team Liam, is on the record saying that he would do melodies while Louis did the lyrics while they were in 1D.

He said it first in 2017 in a fan Q&A:

Fan: When you were in One Direction, you and Louis were a really strong writing team. As you've transitioned into solo stuff, have you felt really strongly about working on music vs lyrics more? Liam: To be honest with you, I've never been much of a lyrics man. I kind of bungle along with the lyrics. I'll be honest with you, sometimes lyrics just feel like homework. So when I'm sitting down to write I'm more of a melodies man. I like to just escape a little bit. There's a lot of pictures of me asleep in the studio, it looks like. But I'm not asleep. That's just where I go to when I'm trying to think about what's gonna come next in the song (...). I'm kind of more of a melodies person, I'd say. Louis was always more for the lyrics

Then he said it again in 2023 in an interview with a Chilean media outlet (note how Louis doesn't even do the lyrics alone haha):

"Whenever I was in the studio with Louis, I'd kind of do the melodies and then Louis would kind of do the lyrics with Jamie (Scott), and I'd kind of zone out whenever there were words on the page."

Louis said it as well in an interview with Radio DeeJay in 2022.

"Personally, for me, it's always been easier to write lyrics than melody and music, but I think it's like, each to their own in that."

He also said this in 2022:

“Sometimes, it’ll depend on who you’re working with, sometimes you kinda lean on whatever their side is. For me, 9 times out of 10, I come into the room with minimum a concept, or a lyric, or a title or something I want to talk about. And again, my strength lies in lyric, I’m trying to get better…So we’ll have a concept, and then probably some, one of the lads I’m working with will pick out a guitar line, we’ll find a melody about that and try and match the title we started with to what were writing.”

I think we can thoroughly confirm that Louis is not proficient with instruments. Add to that that he even confirms himself (two years ago, so 12 years into his career), that he has an easier time writing lyrics than melodies and music and that he's not really that good at writing melodies. There's nothing wrong with it, everyone has their own strengths, but it's the combination of things that makes it sting.

He has never played an instrument in public, he has never played an instrument in one of his albums, he only did background vocals for 2 out of 34 songs, and he AND Liam both say his strength isn't melodies. He's even outright admitting that his co-writers often come up with his melodies.

Songs aren't just lyrics. The melody of a song is just as important (some would argue, more important). If he himself admits that he has issues with melodies and music, then you can't just decide that it doesn't matter and he's "an incredible songwriter" anyway. He's simply not. If you like his music, then what you like are the co-writers he chooses to work with.

POINT 2. He's not that involved in his own songwriting process

I'm not saying that he's not involved at all or that he never writes anything, but he's not the driving force behind it. He's not the main songwriter, the one who commands the room, the one who comes up with everything.

How do we know this? It's pretty simple.

For one, the amount of collaborators he has.

Walls had 34 songwriters in 12 tracks. THIRTY-FOUR. Huge block of text incoming (used for impact):

Sean Douglas

Jamie Harman

Stuart Chrichton

Cole Citrenbaum

James Newman

Stephen Wrabel

Bryn Christopher

Andrew Jackson

Duck Blackwell

Levi Lennox

Julian Bunetta

John Ryan

Amish Patel

Jim Lavigne

Danny Majic

John Mitchell

Justin Franks

Noel Gallagher

Dave Gibson

Jacob Manson

Iain James

Wayne Hector

Steve Robson

Matthew Burns

Jason Reeves

Ali Tamposi

Andrew Watt

Ed Drewett

Yei Gonzalez

Jamie Scott

Johan Carlsson

Joe Janiak

Valentina

Louis, obviously

Of course, not every songwriter was on every track, but you can't possibly have a vision if you're working with this many people for a single project. There was only one sample (Noel Gallagher on Walls), so it's not even a Beyoncé case, where she had many songwriters but it was because she was sampling a bunch of songs.

This many people on a single, very short, project simply means that there wasn't a unified vision and a unified leader. How can you possibly make an album sound cohesive if it was written by two entire soccer teams and their benches?

Faith In The Future was much more concise in terms of its collaborators with fourteen (seventeen if we count producers), which is not a small number, but it's more standard for a pop album. So props to him for narrowing it down, I suppose.

The problem here, and with Walls and all his other singles, is that there are a lot of cooks on every song and Louis doesn't seem to be the primary songwriter in any of them.

I don't want to be hypocritical, so first I'll address that Harry's debut album also had a lot of writers in each song, but there was a caveat there, Harry's first album was written in a retreat in Jamaica. All the songs had the same names because he just gave blanket credit to everyone present.

The main producer of that album was Jeff Bhasker, so he got writing credit on every song. Then Tyler Johnson was basically an assistant to Jeff, and he also got credit. Ryan Nasci and Alex Salibian were engineers who were helping with the mixing, and they also got writing credit on every song. With two exceptions, 1. Two Ghosts, which Harry had written when he was in 1D in 2014/2015. 2. Sweet Creature, which he wrote alone with Kid Harpoon. The rest of the 8 tracks on HS1 were written by the same six songwriters. The total number of songwriters + producers for HS1 is 9, including 2 former 1D songwriters who got credit for Two Ghosts.

Another caveat here, is that if you read my last post, you know we can tell the % of songwriting of each collaborator. Harry was the driving force behind every single HS1 song, Jeff, Tyler, and Mitch got minority credit, while Alex and Ryan got a small percentage.

For instance, with Sign of the Times (the lead single and most successful song of that album)

Ryan Nasci + Alex Salibian = 9.5% Mitch Rowland + Tyler Johnson + Jeff Bhasker = 40.51% Harry Styles = 50%

Harry has primary credit on every single song on that album, FYI.

For Fine Line, the team was tighter. There are still 9 names total but the average number of co-writers goes down in half to 3.6 per song, because the core group is smaller (Harry, Tyler, Kid, and Mitch) and the add-ons are just there in one or two tracks. Harry also has primary credit on almost every single song (except Lights Up, where he has 40% credit and Tyler Johnson has 45%).

In some songs, such as She, he has 80% credit and the other 3 split the remaining 20%. This screenshot is old, Kid Harpoon has since signed to GMR so we can no longer split his and Harry's %, but that happened after the release of Fine Line, and luckily I'd saved these.

For his third album, the team is now 7 (with Harry, Kid, and Tyler doing the bulk of the work), and the average songwriters per track is 3.07. Sadly, since Kid signed to GMR I can't get a breakdown of the % anymore.

One day I'll make a post about this because I think it's so telling, in terms of Harry as a musician, but I just wanted to get this out of the way. I HATE hypocrisy, and I'm not going to bash Louis for something if the person I support is doing the same. He's not. And I needed to show that.

So, for his first album, Louis had the 34 songwriters I mentioned above + 5 extra producers. Each song had an average of 4.25 songwriters.

For his second album, Louis had 14 songwriters + 3 extra producers. Each song had an average of 4 songwriters.

The average in and of itself isn't that bad. It's pretty standard for pop musicians. The thing is that the standard pop musician isn't constantly gloating about his songwriting prowess and doesn't have a fanbase that constantly boasts either.

If Louis had primary credit in his songs, even if he had a lot of collaborators, I couldn't really fault him for it. Alas, he does not.

As I said in the other post, Louis' PRO is PRS, which is British. Foreign PROs have to collect through an American one, usually ASCAP or BMI. It seems like Louis collects through BMI. Why? Well, because

In songs where all the other songwriters are with BMI, BMI controls 100%, meaning, also Louis' part. We can't say what % each of them wrote, but we can infer that this means Louis is collecting royalties through BMI.

Anyway, there's nothing really all that interesting about the % of his writing credits. All songs have an equal distribution among all participants, except some notable ones (and I'll get to that in a sec). The fact that everyone gets the same % of credit on every song is... well, telling. It's impossible for every single collaborator to have contributed the same amount to every single song in every single case. That's just not what happens when you have a group of 34 or 14 people writing an album.

Louis made a point, particularly with his second album, of working with artists as opposed to professional songwriters:

“Through my own experience, sometimes, with a ‘professional’ songwriter (...) they write hits for a living, that’s their livelihood. So to ask them to go in the room and want to write an album track, sometimes those are difficult things to ask for. ‘Cos the back of their mind they’re thinking 'but if we shape this like a single, who knows?’ and all of a sudden, again you’re changing the song. Whereas with artists, they completely understand this is a 16 track album, track 11 is as important as track 1.”

What he calls a "professional songwriter" takes this job as a 9 to 5. That person will split % evenly and call it a day, unless there's some very specific reason to get more or less credit. But Louis was writing as a collaborative effort with a group of people who he calls artists. This wasn't a job for them, this was art.

They didn't all contribute the same, so why should they all get the same %?

It does save me time, because 99% of the songs look like this:

If there's one songwriter from ASCAP among 4 songwriters, and he gets 25% and the other three divide the remaining 75%. Pretty straightforward, each get 25%. You're free to look it up yourself.

The notable exceptions are Only The Brave

We know Louis is with BMI, and BMI only controls 5% of the song. So the other two songwriters split 95% of the writing credit (this isn't surprising because it's known that Louis hadn't actually written in this song. Seems like they threw him in a 5% for some reason).

And Just Hold On

Steve Aoki has 25% and the other 75% is divided among four people (we don't know how, though, but it suggests that Louis has slightly less than Steve).

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I'm trying to be as fair as possible. You can be very charitable and believe that Louis was the driving force behind every song and he just generously gave away equal writing credit for people who didn't do as much as him. But that's simply not true. He got equal credit when he didn't contribute to those songs equally.

You can actually look up what the people involved have said, and if you're honest with yourself, you will conclude that Louis was not the driving force behind his own music.

Louis said this about the process of writing his songs:

“9/10 melody will come first, but before any of that happens we normally talk about a general concept on what we want to get across, what we want it to sound and feel like. Then it kind of just happens naturally, really.”

So they come up with a concept, then go to the melody, then the song comes up from that. Cool.

Now, remember that quote I posted above? About how he has a hard time coming up with melodies and how he leans on whoever he's writing with?

���Sometimes, it’ll depend on who you’re working with, sometimes you kinda lean on whatever their side is. For me, 9 times out of 10, I come into the room with minimum a concept, or a lyric, or a title or something I want to talk about. And again, my strength lies in lyric, I’m trying to get better…So we’ll have a concept, and then probably some, one of the lads I'm working with will pick out a guitar line, we’ll find a melody about that and try and match the title we started with to what were writing.”

He gives them an abstract concept and whoever he's writing with comes up with the melody, and then they go from there. That's not an equally collaborative effort. "Whoever he's working with" is doing the bulk of the work while all he does is say "yes" and "no" and give vague concepts and ideas.

Let me be clear, this isn't bad. Most pop artists work this way. It's FINE. But those artists aren't considered proficient songwriters and are usually belittled for their small contributions, while Louis is out there talking himself up as a songwriter and his fans eat it up and attack his peers.

If you can't write music, or play instruments, if you don't come up with the melodies, and you get help to come up with the lyrics, how exactly are you "a great songwriter"?

The answer is that you're not.

But let's actually see what Louis has to say about his songwriting process. I looked up quotes to see if he has any insight that would point to him being more involved, having some technical (if base leve) knowledge, being knowledgeable about processes or any sort of musical element and I found absolutely nothing. I could be missing it — as I said, I stopped paying attention to him years ago. But I do think I'm a pretty good researcher, and still found nothing.

But since I'm very charitable, I decided to use two long-form sources where he specifically talks about his second album.

The following is a track by track breakdown of his second album he did on Twitter. It's basically just his tweets for every song. If you're already familiar with this you can skip it. I'll discus it in an abridged way anyway.

The Greatest: "[It] was written in London with [co-writers]. It was always written as a tour opener, but also made sense to start the album off with a bang."

Written All Over Your Face: "Love the guitar line that comes in towards the end. Rob Harvey working his magic."

Bigger Than Me: "[It] was really important for me making the record. It gave me the confidence early on in the process. Ambition [sic] chorus vocally but suits a big show and us singing it together."

Lucky Again: "This song started of [sic] with this like hypnotic guitar riff Jay Moon came up with and we built the song around that. Feels like a good driving song."

Face The Music: "Me and Dave Gibson wrote [it] together in LA. One of my favourites on the album! Love that opening lyric. Did so many great sessions with Dave!!"

Chicago: "[It] was written in LA with Dave. Love the lyric and the concept."

All This Time: "I've always loved [it]. Just feel like a feel good tune from the off. James had a great vision for this song."

Out Of My System: "[It] was such a moment in the studio. I was with Nico and Dave was on zoom. I wanted to write something that had a bit of danger to it and had the title. Nico straight away played the riff and we were off."

Headline: "I think [it] was the last song for the album. Red triangle lads smashed the production and the academic for writing it. Made some subtle changes but loved the song as is."

Saturdays: "It felt emotional writing recording and performing this song. There’s something about it. Love the trainers lyric as well! Joe cross absolutely smashed the production, love the way the song grows.

Silver Tongues: "Had such a great few days written with Dave Sneddon, Theo Hutchcraft and Joe Cross. [It] is defo one of my favourite on the album. Love everything about this song!"

She Is Beauty We Are World Class: "Written in the same few days as the last two songs. Dave turned up with this picture on his phone of the title ‘She is beauty we are world class’ it was taken in the toilet mirror of a train. Felt like a weird place for such a poetic sentiment"

Common People: "[It] is about Doncaster having a place on my album. Such a big part of who I am. Love the simplicity of the song and the lyric.

Holding On To Heartache: "[This] is a song I’ve always loved. I’m glad I found a place for it on the deluxe. The middle 8 takes it to another gear as well! That’s going to be a fucker to sing night after night haha!"

That's The Way Love Goes: "Also one of my favourites. Always loved dry your eyes by the streets and wanted to write a similar concept. Again love the strings at the end!"

Overall, he had one sort of technical comment to make, about Holding on To Heartache. "Middle 8" is when a song switches up/adds new elements. He's saying that the song had a switch-up and it took it to the next level.

The rest of "songwriting notes" are:

I wrote [song] with [name of collaborator]

We wrote [song] while [activity] in [place]

[Collaborator] had a great idea and we built on that.

I love [part or sound of the song]!

The only commentary on what he wanted from sound is about That's The Way Love Goes. He liked a song by a band and he wanted to recreate it. Of course, he doesn't say what he liked about that song or that band and what he wanted to recreate. Is it the drums? The ambiance? The backing vocals? The reverb? Does he even know?

He never talks about coming up with ideas himself — it's always one of his collaborators coming up with something and then building up on that.

He also never mentions specific instruments or sounds that he likes. Reading these, I definitely he believe he was there when the songs were written. I believe he told his collaborators, in very vague terms, what he wanted the songs to sound like, and I believe he told them what he wanted the songs to be about. But so far, I have no reason to believe he had any of the knowledge necessary or took any of the necessary steps to achieve those sounds.

Of course, this could be just off the cuff commentary and not serious, so I can't take this as the only contributions and opinions he has on his album, can I?

Give me credit for how charitable I am... Let's give him one more chance. This time, going by his track by track video. He's going to discuss every single song and the album as a whole in detail. It's a one-on-one interview posted directly on his YouTube channel.

He starts off discussing how different his sound is from his last album and worrying about alienating fans, but he doesn't describe what's different or why. Why would it alienate fans? I don't understand why he's so vague. It just sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about.

About The Greatest:

"I think straight away, from the off, Fred Ball did a really — goes way beyond my musical comprehension — but really really clever kind of opener, really slaps you round the face."

That's all the songwriting commentary we get about this song. His collaborator did something he didn't really understand but it was sick. He's not starting off very promising...

About Written All Over Your Face:

“That’s a song where straight away I can picture Rob Harvey, he’s a brilliant lyricist but also brilliant with melody as well. He sang out that melody and from the off, once we had that lead part — I don’t want to say the song wrote itself, but it kind of really set the tone for the kind of style that we wanted to do.”

Someone else came up with the melody and the song "wrote itself". Well, he didn't want to say that it wrote itself, but he also didn't say what it did do, so I'm going to believe that it did write itself. It certainly doesn't sound like Louis wrote it.

About Bigger Than Me: Nothing. He just talks about what the song is about. No insight on its composition.

About Lucky Again: He repeats what he said on Twitter about the hypnotic melody someone else came up with setting the tone for the song. It's completely normal for an artist to bounce ideas off collaborators, but it's slightly worrying that every single time it's someone else's idea that he builds on. Are none of this ideas his own?

He then talks about post-production of the album, and I said to myself, "Oh, he's finally gonna give us some insight!" Nope.

He just said that it was hard because he was on tour, and he'd say yes to something and then he'd regret it, but being on tour affected the way he made decisions because he was being influenced by the shows.

And this actually grinds my fucking gears. What did he say yes to and why did he regret it? What part of the shows influenced the songs and how?

This man has now been a part of releasing SEVEN profesional studio albums. And he can't name a single specific production note he gave?

"I wanted this instrument here because of this reason." Or "because of the live shows, I realized I preferred a crescendo of the melody." Or even "I asked the background vocals to be this way because of this reason." LITERALLY ANYTHING. He can't articulate a single music-related thought. It's actually impressive (derogatory).

He expands on how he thinks he writes better in the UK (?????) and when he starts his writing sessions midday instead of early in the morning (????????) because he doesn't want it to feel like work (IT IS WORK!). None of this is technical songwriting stuff. Next he's gonna describe his BREAKFAST on songwriting days. HOW IS THIS RELEVANT TO A TRACK BY TRACK ANALYSIS??

These anecdotal details are great when surrounded with technical commentary. They're shallow and ridiculous when surrounded by literal empty space.

He waxes poetic about how cool the people he worked with are (which is great!) but he doesn't really get technical about why he likes working with them other than "attention to detail" and "really fucking cool." At this point it feels like he's writing an essay and he's trying to run the words.

He mentions being inspired by Arctic Monkeys... again.

And The Snuts (one of his openers on tour). He mentions nothing specific about the sound of either of these bands, because that'd probably kill him on the spot. The only specificity we get is that he grew up close to Sheffield, where AM are from. In case you forgot he's a Northern Lad From The North.

"And it wasn’t until I heard that DMA’s record and how Stuart Price had produced it and of course they’re using some of these modern, trendy, radio, whatever word you wanna use to describe it sounds. They do it in a really authentic way, it’s not in there just because it’s trendy, it’s in there because it serves the song."

"Modern, trendy, radio, whatever word you wanna use to describe it." I don't wanna use any words, Louis, you're the one nit!! Describe it?? have NO IDEA what he's even saying here. This was in 2022, what was dancey, modern, trendy, and radio in 2022? As it Was?? WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT??

I actually went and played some DMA's to try to understand what he's saying. Their most streamed song is a chill-out version of Believe (the Cher song), the only dancey, trendy, modern thing about that song is the inspiration. it's literally chillout pop. The second most streamed song sounds like old Coldplay + bossa n stone. There is nothing modern, dancey (does he mean EDM?) or trendy about any of this. I'm losing my mind. This man is musically illiterate.

About Face The Music:

"I am not the most sophisticated musical listener, I kinda like songs like this that have got that wall of sound that will give you that energy. Again, it’s easy to kind of imagine in the live context."

This is actually hilarious, because Louis is so musically illiterate, that he just used a real concept (Wall of Sound) to describe something that doesn't apply in the slightest. "Wall of Sound" is a concept by Phil Spector (who, incidentally, is a convinced murderer). It consists on duplicating or triplicating a certain sound and making it build up on itself to the point where the sounds are indistinguishable from each other. For instance, you play the piano, then you replicate that on a keyboard, then you replicate that on a synth, and you mix them together in such a way that you can't tell each instrument from the other, you just hear the result.

The most famous example of a Wall of Sound song is God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. It can be applied to any genre and sound, but because of the nature of how you mix it, it tends to have an almost orchestral sound and it works well in very grandiose songs that sound kind of ethereal. Another song that uses Wall Of Sound is Halo by Beyoncé or Set Fire To The Rain by Adele.

Face The Music does NOT do this in the slightest. You can very clearly hear each individual instrument (derogatory). Louis is using the very real and tangible musical concept of Wall Of Sound to describe this because the song is loud. He probably heard of the concept in passing and took the meaning of it in its face, a literal wall of sound, as in, loud (and this song isn't even that loud — he's a pussy).

This is why I say this man isn't a great songwriter. He's been in the industry for FOURTEEN YEARS. Can you imagine being a professional songwriter and going to the studio with someone who can't articulate a singular musical thought? And he's worth millions while you're struggling to pay rent?

He used this expression wrongly twice so far, btw. (After the interviewer says it's a festival song) "Yeah, yeah definitely but you still kind of got that sing along chorus but dressed up with enough of that wall of sound behind it."

About Chicago:

"Sometimes what I find challenging, is I can see the picture or I can hear the song or I can see the concerts in my head and sometimes it’s quite hard to articulate that cause you’ve got such a clear vision in your head and you just want someone else to be able to read your mind, go ‘Yeah that’s what Im talking about!"

You know what you could do to help you with this Louis? Study music theory. Read a book. Watch a documentary. Listen to literally any music. He can't articulate it because he knows nothing about music and can't play any instruments. I believe wholeheartedly that he has a vision for his albums. It's not that hard to conceptualize a sound in your head, if you're able to hear and have lived in this world for a couple of decades. But it's very, very hard to translate that into words if you don't know the first thing about music theory.

Other than this, he just discusses being vulnerable in his lyrics in Chicago. Cool, not really technically about songwriting, but whatever.

About All This Time:

"I think Fred did a brilliant job on this. And again this is something where I know what I like, but in terms of a production, it wasn’t as if I had loads of notes to give on this. It’s a little bit more me taking a risk, doing something slightly dancier."

I hadn't listened to this man's album, and good lord I wish I hadn't taken research for this so seriously. This has got to be one of the worst songs I've ever heard. But I was curious as to what he meant with "dancier." And I mean, I guessssss??? I don't think this song has any idea what it's supposed to be.

Notice how he said he didn't have any notes to give? He just let the man do his thing? He shouldn't have. Perhaps notes would have killed it and ended its misery.

About Out Of My System:

"That was a song, again, where we started out with a guitar riff. I went into, I want to say, definitely Arctic Monkeys, maybe Teddy Picker, maybe Dancing Shoes, and I was listening to it on the way to that writing session. I went in and I said to the lads, Nico and Dave ‘I want to write something as punk as I can get away with’ and that’s when Nico straight away came up with that really kind of punchy riff. And that riff kind of sums up the song, really, that kind of danger and that kind of energy."

I don't even know where to start.

Once again, he doesn't come up with a melody, he doesn't come up with a song. He goes to the studio, tells other (more talented) people "I want a song that sounds like this", the other (more talented) people come up with a riff, and that's how he builds the song. THIS IS YOUR GREAT SONGWRITER??? He's using his co-writers as ChatGPT in human form are you fucking kidding me?

The AUDACITY to compare Teddy Picker or Dancing Shoes to whatever it is he's trying to do actually offends me. Teddy Picker and Dancing Shoes are two technically flawless songs that sound tight and fresh 20 years later.

If you've never listened to Teddy Picker, I implore you to press play here.

Now go and listen to Out Of My System. Don't get me wrong, OOM isn't nearly as criminally offensive as All This Time. The musicians playing it (not Louis) are competent enough and it doesn't sound bad. It also doesn't sound good. It's a 6/10 song. It sounds dated, like a 2000s Christian rock band doing a Limp Bizkit but if the lead singer had to leave and they let the son of the pastor take over for shits and giggles.

He's also SO BASIC. I love myself some Arctic Monkeys, but does he not know any other bands? If at least he picked songs that weren't incredibly cliché I could overlook his fascination with the most obvious choice he could reach for over and over. But no, he chooses a huge single and a cult classic. If anything, I think Out Of My System is more similar to Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But... (still kind of insulting to a quality song, but more appropriate). But I doubt Louis has ever listened to any song of theirs below 100M streams on Spotify. I already covered that this whole indie rock thing is all a front and he's a Top40 poppy boy at heart here.

About this song, he actually does give a morsel of technical commentary, saying he recorded the vocals right after a show to get a rougher edge. I mean, I don't think he needed to wait until after a show to get a rougher edge to his vocals. They're rough 24/7, but anyway. The one insight on something technical and it's about the one thing he obviously knows about, since the lead vocals are his one and only job in his albums.

Then he talks about touring, and about one of the million indie garage rock bands with multiple white boys that all sound the same that he has in his "festival." And then about his "festival." Then for some reason he gets on to talk about his bucket list and skydiving. And I'm here wondering WHEN IS HE GONNA START TALKING ABOUT SONGWRITING?

About Headline:

"Um, yeah this was the last song that we got on this record and I’m not gonna lie, it was like 85% finished when I heard it. Well, it was finished, um and there was just a few things across the lyric that were good, that were great but they just didn’t feel true to me so we kind of remolded it, reshaped it so it felt kind of relevant to this record."

So the song was done when he got it and he just touched a couple of lyrics. Color me surprised. His voice sounds like nails in a chalkboard on it. Worse than I've ever heard it. I can't believe he put this out to the world.

He says it kinda sounds like Blossom when they do their 80s sound. I mean, he's not completely off. I would say that the song sounds like a The 1975 or Bleachers reject if Matty Healy/Jack Antonoff had swallowed several sheets of sandpaper. I guess I'll give him props for knowing another indie English rock band aside from Arctic Monkeys and the ones that do his "festival"?

About Saturdays:

He talks endlessly about lyrics and Doncaster and........

Anyway, then he says this:

"Again goes way above my musical comprehension when he mentioned at the time I’m like I don’t really know what you’re on about there but Joe, did Joe Cross do something brilliant with Saturdays and there is little to no bottom end until the drums come in which is about halfway through the song now, once you hear it and listen back you kind of miss it you’re like where is it and then when the drums hit in every single time it just feels like a slap around the face and that was one of those moments for me where just thankful to being for being around these brilliant musicians because that’s not a trick I could pull out your sleeve."

He thinks having the drums come in mid-song is revolutionary. BEYOND HIS MUSICAL COMPREHENSION. Bless his heart. The fact that he admits that this is something that he could never come up with himself simply blows my mind. He was 30 years old when he did this, btw. He sounds like a child who's setting foot in the studio for the first time ever.

He's gonna lose his mind when he finally hears In The Air Tonight for the first time.

He then adds:

"I have a very, what’s the word? I’m not, you know in terms of when I speak about music there is no musical education there it’s all on feel so I rely on people like Joe to bring that incredible musicality to the production."

Really? I never could've guessed... Maybe you should tell your fans, as they have somehow convinced themselves you're the best songwriter to have graced this earth.

About Silver Tongues:

"Sonically I think it’s really clever because the first time people hear it you kind of get into a false sense of security where it comes in with the piano and it feels really emotional. It feels like you’re gonna go into a ballad and then straight away the production kicks in so that’s something again in the live show I think that’ll be a moment."

He's endlessly fascinated by the most basic musical concepts. It's kind of sad. Starting a song slow and upping the tempo is not "really clever," Louis. It's been done a million times. You literally "wrote" End Of The Day in 2015. Were you asleep the entire time? Huh??

About She Is Beauty We Are World Class:

He repeats the story he told on Twitter. Then adds this:

"That was that was an interesting moment I think this is where we said, “let’s really try and go all in on the dance-ier sound of things” because I kind of allude to it on like All This Time but like it’s not quite as like trancey as this is. Almost has that kind of DMA’s lift with it with the instrumental that comes in on the post chorus."

I haven't listened to a ton of DMA's music, but the few tracks I did listen sounded nothing like this. It cracks me up that he doesn't have the lingo to describe music genres. We saw it painfully when he kept describing hip hop, rap, and trap as "urban" back in the day, but the fact that he keeps describing electronic music/EDM as "dancey" and "trancey" is super funny. Like, EDM does have the word "dance" in its name, but nobody calls it "dancey", Louis. You sound like an old man.

About Common People:

"I'm from Doncaster, and me friends, and me family, and Doncaster, and I'm just a lad from Doncaster."

About Angels Fly:

The technical commentary is limited to "it has a big chorus." Moving on.

About Holding On To Heartache:

"It's a bit more pop. I think fans will like it." is the extent of his analysis. He's actually incapable of uttering a single technical sentence. It's incredible.

About Lucky Again:

He gives lots of credit to one of his collaborators (Vincent McMorrow), which is nice of him. Once again he cannot articulate what's so good about good ol' Vince. He's just "an absolute genius" and "constantly challenging different ideas." What those ideas are, we won't find out.

He then starts to talk about a concept, loses train of thought mid-sentence, and he says (and I quote) "We’ll just scrap that. I can’t remember what it was… fucking some line." Why wasn't this edited out? I truly cannot even begin to understand.

About That's The Way love Goes:

"Me mates, and Doncaster, and me mates..."

He then again talks about having a Wall Of Sound, and at this point I'm getting extreme second-hand embarrassment because I can totally picture him describing loud songs like that in front of very well educated musicians, who in turn would have to contain their laughter and do their very best not to correct him.

And that's the end of it. I think I've given him enough opportunities to talk about songwriting. He doesn't know the first thing about it.

When I say I want him to talk about technical stuff or about the process. I mean stuff like this:

"'Fine Line' I wrote during a gap in the tour. It was January 2018 and I was at my friend Tom's house, who I work with, and we just started strumming this thing, and we started layering these vocals, and it turned into this 6-minute thing. (...) I wanted it to turn into something else at the end, I wanted like a big crescendo ending. While we were in Bath, Sammy [his engineer] started playing this little thing on the piano, and I tweaked it a little bit, and I was like 'That has to go at the end of Fine Line.'"

Harry for NPR in 2019

I don't need him to discuss this sort of thing as if he was a Juilliard professor. But just... some idea of the technical aspects of it. Like layering the vocals, wanting a crescendo. And HE did it, HE tweaked it, HE got the idea of adding it to Fine Line. It's a collaborative effort, for sure, but he's an integral part of it, because at the end of the day it's HIS song.

"That's just a voice note of my ex-girlfriend talking. I was playing guita and she took a phone call — and she was actually speaking in the key of the song."

Harry for Rolling Stone in 2019

Super simple and short, but it explains an artistic decision (adding Camille's voice at the end of Cherry), and why he made it, and how HE made it, how it was his idea and his decision, and why, musically, sonically, he chose to do it.

"It's a weird one. It started simple, but I wanted to have this big epic outro thing. And it just took shape as this thing where I thought, 'That's just like the music I want to make.' I love strings, I love horns, I love harmonies —so why don't we just put all of that in there."

Harry for Rolling Stone in 2019

More about Fine Line. Concise information about what he wants in music instead of "oh I have it in my head but I can't put it into words."

Harry: One of the songs on my record, She, we got James Gadson who played on all the early Bill Withers stuff. He's like 81. And he came and played on the record. We were like, putting down like a demo drum-thing, and we were like, "Oh, we love the sound of these drums." And they [the engineers] were like, "Oh, he's still alive." So we just got him to come play! Zane: Can I ask you what you got out of that session? When you actually got to experience a player who was inspiring the sound you were searching for, and you got to actually witness the player... Was it the feel...? Cause we can try to recapture all we want, but only one person can play like Gadson, right? Only one. Harry: Yeah. I think it's one of those things that, like. I mean, with all instruments, but with drums, and with live drums, you just can't get the feel from a machine. You can have it so it so it makes your chest drawl, but there's like a groove and a feel and a swing, that someone who's that seasoned, who has just played on anything and everything and is such a master...

Harry for Selects Beats 1, March 2020

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? A songwriter involved in his own music knows at least surface level technical stuff and can off the cuff talk about them in conversation, because he lives them. He's there as they happen. He makes the decisions and he understands what's going on. Even if they aren't a proficient drum player, they still have some level of understanding.

Same interview, talking about doing his own backing vocals:

"I do all the harmonies. I can go pretty high full voice, and then there's like a falsetto bit, and then if I'm doing really high harmonies, you wanna get like that Queen-y thing. I have like a squeal thing that's pretty up there, which you don't wanna do too often, but... I have a funny video of me recording some harmonies from the record. I'll send it to you. It's definitely squeal-y. I usually stack my own harmonies. I can't remember when I started doing it, but I try to get a crowd sound, so I just do each harmony in a different accent. And you end up with someone Scottish in there, like a French guy. And you go like London, Northerner, couple of Americans, and you end up with like an amazing crowd."

I'm using Harry as an example because he's an artist I pay a lot of attention to who has the same background and has been in the indistry for the same amount of time as Louis. They share the same resources to learn and educate themselves, perfect their own profession.

I don't think Harry is necessarily a prodigy, but he's an actual songwriter who's involved every step of the way.

And this is what I wanted to close with.

"I think that the first cut that changed it for me was the Steve Aoki song with Louis Tomlinson. I just wrote that with this amazing writer Eric Ross (...). We just wrote a bunch of stuff together, and we wrote that, and one day a couple of years after it was written I got a text, and it was like, 'Hey, Louis Tomlinson is cutting this.' And as a One Direction stan I lost my shit."

Sasha Sloan, co-writer of Just Hold On.

"Louis Tomlinson’s track ‘Silver Tounges’, from album ‘Faith In the Future’ recorded @80hertz | Engineered by @gj_atkins, recording to a Studer A80 1” tape machine (courtesy of @studio_magnetique) | Produced & written by @joejrcross"

Caption by the studio where Silver Tongues was recorded

"I was in with Andrew Jackson and Duck Blackwell, two of my collaborators, Louis wasn't there, my manager had a meeting with his management and they said 'Louis is looking for songs', the brief was like Oasis and I was like 'I don't think he should do Oasis so let's give him a pop ballad." Bryn explained that the trio didn't know much about Louis but were aware of Johannah's death and decided to channel that into the song. "It was a little bit weird, we don't know him, we don't know what he went through," he said before adding: "But we did it and we're bringing our own elements, we've all lost people so we were putting our own words into them. "We sent it to his team and he was like 'Oh my God, I've been waiting to write this song but I couldn't,' I heard that he'd been encouraged to 'write a song about my mum but I couldn't' he'd heard bits and was like 'This is it. This is what I was feeling. This is all that I wanted to do'. And so then he went, came in and wrote a bit more like the middle eight and yeah, then he released it."

Bryn Christopher, co-writer of Two Of us

James Vincent McMorrow via instagram (he has archived all posts prior to the end of 2023, so this is gone now)

I'll be fair and include this quote by Theo Hutchcraft:

"I absolutely love these lads and being part of [Louis Tomlinson's] masterplan and creative vision has been a total joy. He deserves it all."

It does absolutely nothing to convince me that this "masterplan" and "creative vision" was anything other than him giving out vague notes that he couldn't otherwise describe.

This is what Harry's collaborators have to say about him:

"The other thing that happened with me not being there at first was that Harry got to lead the room. He didn’t have to sit there and constantly feel like he’s got to defer to me. Harry was the boss. And they all just bonded so hard and it just became the dream scenario, and everyone contributed in such a fantastic way. (...) I wanted it to be something that Harry really felt was his baby, making his creative mark. With me, if it comes from the artist, that’s the best thing. If it’s real, people are going to know it’s real. (...) I’m hopeful that we’re gonna do many more albums—this is just the beginning. But I thought it was really important to set the tone of, “We’re gonna do exactly what’s in your heart, Harry.” (...) And what a luxury to have Mitch and Ryan, where they could come up with an idea and it could just be tracked and sound like a record instantly. And that’s how “Sign of the Times” happened. Harry was playing it on the piano and we fleshed it out a little bit. Then he jumped on the mic, I played piano and we cut that whole record in three hours."

Jeff Bhasker, producer of HS1

"He had asked for a specific guitar, which I loved. He knew my music well enough to request a specific sound from a specific instrument. I got there and he said, 'Let's eat.' We ordered food, we sat, we talked, we laughed. (...) And then we went in and spent the day recording. When I watched Harry track his vocals, it was a singing lesson in its own way."

Ben Harper, who played guitar on Boyfriends.

"One of my favorite parts of the session was after the session, because as I was loading out all my gear Harry invited me to stick around because he wanted to finish the song right then and there. To get to watch Harry in his process was eye-opening, and I learned a lot. He orchestrated the vocal harmonies like a classical composer, spot on, note for note. He just stacked them perfectly in pitch, one better than the next, and it was really eye-opening to see somebody step on the mic and have the parts orchestrated in his head. I’ve never seen anything like it. actually."

More of Ben Harper

“Day one, we’re writing a song, and [Harry] came up with this piano part. And then I was like, ‘Oh, that could be faster. And you could do this chord, and we could do this.’ ” That evolved into “Late Night Talking,”

Kid Harpoon, producer of Fine Line and Harry's House

We recorded the song at Rob Stringer’s house in England. We moved all the furniture out and put a drum kit in the TV room. “As It Was” was done in that setup. Harry came in with a riff idea, and we ran with it. It’s a funny one because it happened so quickly that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recreate that magic again — it was just so good. Lyrically, what I love about Harry on this whole album, is that he has a lot to say but he can tease meaning. What’s going on in his life is intertwined in that song, and in that line, “Harry, you’re no good alone.” I love the way he built the lyrics across his whole record, so when I think about “As It Was” I think about the whole album, to be honest.

More from Kid Harpoon

I could go on...

If Louis isn't interested in that sort of thing, that's fine. He doesn't have to be an involved songwriter. But then his fans should act accordingly. The Hags, specifically, who continue to pedal this idea that Harry is dumb, a puppet, who takes credit for his producers ideas, who can't explain the songwriting process. The projecting is off the charts. And it's why I needed to include this section about Harry.

There's actually a final part to this series, which is analyzing his lyrics. I thought I might be able to put it in this post, but it's already long enough, so I'm going to split it.

But bottom line, there isn't a single musical bone in Louis' body. He's not curious or interested in music, clearly. He got lucky he got put in a band because his looks fit what the producers of the X Factor were looking for. And he got lucky that his bandmates were charismatic, naturally talented, and also good-looking.

He could perfect his voice, he could learn instruments, he could study music. He could do something to improve. He's had the time, the money, and the resources for a very long time. The fact that in almost 15 years he hasn't, isn't just telling of his lack of natural talent, but also of his own lazy personality.

[melbatron5000]

More crap about story rules

I dunno if this is helpful, but I read somewhere that Tumblr is just talking to yourself until someone goes, "Oh, I like this," so here goes. It helps me to get this sort of stuff out and be able to reference back to it.

I'm a novelist. I write speculative fiction, primarily urban fantasy with a dollop of mythopoeia (wanting to lean more towards the mythopoeia, but anyway). Neil is definitely a role model of mine, and has been since I was 19. Terry came a little later for me, in my mid-twenties. I'd read Good Omens by then, but believed Neil had a heavier hand in it than Terry did (Ha!). Once I finally picked up some Discworld, I was hooked for life.

I also recently learned I have ADHD, so not only is traditional institutional academia not my thing, I also have trouble sussing out meaning and details from things unless I have specific instructions on where to look. Once I have that in hand, I often go on a tear and find things that I never imagined were there, and frequently surprise not only myself but others. But I absolutely have to have that first step laid out for me in order to make more of my own.

When I first started writing in the 80s (yes, I'm old), I started looking around for the elusive "story structure" I'd heard about vaguely from other writers. I really couldn't find anything written down about what constitutes the steps of a story, the journey a hero must take for a story to be told start to finish. The other writers I'd heard discuss it didn't have concrete ideas for me (lots of hand-waving and "oh, you know"s), so I figured I'd find it in a book somewhere.

I found a little something about structure from Greek philosophy, but that mainly boiled down to stories needing a "beginning, middle, and end," like, duh, and not a lot about what made those three parts up. As a very basic story-telling model, it is incredibly concrete and important, but it's something we've known for thousands of years by now so it doesn't exactly light up the night sky with insight anymore. It's become such common knowledge that it almost doesn't seem like knowledge. I found more from Joseph Campbell, but a lot of what I found written by him was very airy and sort of dream-like, and hard to follow. So I gave up and muddled along the best I could.

About ten years ago now, I decided to try again, and found a whole ton of stuff written about story structure, from Greek philosophy decoded to Shakespear's five-act structure to The Hero's Journey first talked about by Joseph Campbell to modern Hollywood 3-act structure. Around about 2010 there was an explosion of work done on story structure, and damn if it wasn't eye-opening.

My favorite book so far on structure is The Story Grid by Shawn Coyle, because he has broken down all the various types of structure into very concrete, easy-to-comprehend steps that make sense. He talks about exactly where there is wiggle room, exactly where there is not, the general shape of a story in comparison to the general shape of the five stages of grief, what precisely constitutes a scene and what the sequence of scenes has to be to tell a whole, complete story. (In case you're interested, my next favorite book on structure is Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. It fills in a few holes that The Story Grid misses, and together they make a beautifully complete map of how to tell a good story.)

My favorite, in particular, are the Five Commandments of Storytelling. Each scene, each act (however many you want, I like 4), and the story as a whole, all have to follow the Five Commandments. These are elements that have to be present for a scene to work, and for a story to reach its beginning, middle, and end satisfactorily.

Inciting incident. This is something that happens that forces the main character to change course, take action. It has to be either an Act of God, or another character acting on the main character.

Progressive complications. The main character forms a plan to put life back in order and tries it, but is blocked. They have to regroup and form a new plan. Threes in storytelling are always good, but the main character must be blocked until they reach the Turning Point Complication, where they realize that in order to move forward and have a hope of getting where they want, they must make a hard choice. Often the hard choice is that they must do The One Thing They Didn't Want to Do, though the introduction of new information will drive this decision as well. New information can come from another character, or be realized by the main character as a result of the action.

Crisis. They reach the decision point, where they must choose one thing over another. The decision must be between two irreconcilable good things, where they can't have both; or the lesser of two evils, where they can't escape both. The Crisis can also be boiled down to a "what will they do?" question. They're going to have to pick, but they're going to resist before they choose, and that creates tension which keeps the reader invested.

Climax. They make their choice. It's really that simple. They pick.

Resolution. The consequences of their choice are laid out. In a scene, this means the inciting incident of the next scene is introduced because of the character's choice; in an overall story, this leads to the end of the tale where our hero emerges, having learned whatever it was that the author deemed they needed to learn.

For example, Aziraphale is listening to music when a knock comes at the door. (Inciting incident) He forms and enacts a plan -- answer the door, probably hoping to get rid of whoever it is quickly. It's Gabriel. (Complication) He forms and enacts a new plan -- find out what Gabriel is doing here. Gabriel says he doesn't know. (Complication) Gabriel asks to come in. (Complication) Aziraphale forms and enacts a new plan -- tell Gabriel no. Gabriel says oh-kay and turns to the people on the street. (Turning point complication) Now Aziraphale has two bad choices -- bring Gabriel inside, or leave him to wander naked around Whickber street doing God only knows what. (Crisis) He chooses what he thinks is the lesser of two evils -- he tells Gabriel to get in. (Climax) Now Gabriel, possibly Aziraphale's worst enemy, is inside his home, the book shop. (Resolution) And because this is a scene, this Resolution is also the inciting incident of the next scene.

This can go different routes, as when the inciting incident rouses curiosity or creates a promise of something the character wants, instead of inflicting discomfort -- although if a character wants something bad enough, deciding to say no to pursuing it could inflict discomfort, so that counts, too. The inciting incident just means that something happens so that the main character can no longer keep living life as it was. Something has to change, and they have to change it. In the end, it all boils down to something outside the main character knocking them off course, them deciding how to try to get back on course and failing, and what happens as a result. (Beginning, middle, end!)

A good way to create a mystery is to hide the Inciting Incident from the readers/viewers. Or at least, the Inciting Incidents of certain character and scenes. In the above example, we see Aziraphale's Inciting Incident, but we don't see Gabriel's until episode six.

I believe we haven't seen the Inciting Incident of Crowley and Aziraphale's storyline for season 2. It seems like Gabriel showing up is the Inciting Incident for the entire season, but I believe his arrival is a Complication, not the Inciting Incident. As far as what the original Inciting Incident was, well, first and foremost, the Resolution of season 1 would naturally lead into the Inciting Incident of season 2, just as a scene would do for the scene following it. So there's one Clue. As for the answer -- we just have to keep looking where the furniture isn't.

I hope this story breakdown was interesting to someone. I find it completely fascinating, but I am a story nerd, so maybe what I like and find interesting isn't up everyone's alley.

Cheers!