#It's not the years it's the mileage // Indy

[everygame]

Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Developed/Published by: Coal Supper / Panic Released: 1/08/2024 Completed: 7/08/2024 Completion: Finished it!

It seems contrarian for me to open this by saying this is definitely the best game of 2024 and it’s definitely going to be my favourite game of the year… but it’s true.

The thing, I suppose, that makes that kind of wild, declarative statement seem so difficult to declare is that… games are just so broad, aren’t they? Playing something like Thank Goodness You’re Here! is so unbelievably different from playing, say, my favourite game of last year, Hi-Fi Rush, that it doesn’t feel as easy to say as declaring one movie “the best film of the year.” I mean in that case, you still just sit there and watch a movie. There’s not quite the same… granularity of experience. I mean even if you were talking indie games, Balatro touches such a different part of my brain from Thank Goodness You’re Here! So how could I ever, really, compare them?

Well, you know what? Sometimes you gotta just stick your flag somewhere, and my flag goes in the top of a Yorkshire pudding, and when it unfurls it’s the flag… of Yorkshire. Which surprised me, because I’m Scottish, so normally it goes in the top of a Scotch pie, and it’s a Saltire, so I guess I really like Thank Goodness You’re Here!

To describe it, though, which is what you’ve paid for, Thank Goodness You’re Here is a non-evil Untitled Goose Game. You play, in some respects similarly, an agent of chaos in a small town: a tiny man with… jaundice(?) who has been sent to the town of Barnsworth to help the mayor, but end up in the tangle of everyone’s lives. You help them do things that sound explicitly rather simple like mowing a lawn to buying some soup… but it’s not simple at all.

Unlike Untitled Goose Game, your tiny man isn’t just a wee dick; you’re actually helping people, it just happens to be in a very anarchic fashion. You rise to the level of the town, rather than lowering it, so outside of a few smacky bum-bums, you never feel like you’re bullying anyone… well maybe that guy with the chimney. But the joke works.

It would be regressive to describe this game as “weird” or “crazy.” What it is, and what makes it so brilliant, is that it’s so British. If you love the era of British comedy that brought us things like Look Around You or Alan Partridge, you’ll feel right at home here, and I was genuinely laughing all the way through this. Mileage may vary: some jokes and sequences are unbelievably puerile, some are a little smutty; some are… disturbing, but there’s a joyful nature to this whole thing, and it’s all so rapid fire that if something falls flat, it’s not long before you’re laughing about something else.

I think also that the game has a near-perfect take on interactivity for this kind of story-based experience. Outside of special sequences basically all you can do is slap things or jump, but everything is reactive, and the level design is cleverly focused; your path through the game is a sequence of designed loops that you can’t deviate from, but as a result you don’t suffer from the kind of downtime you can struggle with in more open adventures and which can ruin immersion. 

Here you’ll never return to an area and discover it static, how you left it, and have to waffle around trying to find X or Y; you’re always moving forward onto Z. I can hear the criticisms, but at least for me this never felt restrictive; the only issue I really had was feeling that I had to put the game down regularly lest I finish it too quickly–though it’s surprisingly lengthy for something featuring so much bespoke art and sequences, at almost five hours.

To be honest, the game manages something that I wish designers of interactive experiences–think your Meow Wolfs, your Sleep No Mores–would learn from, which is how to always be guiding your player forward through a space and yet still allow them to experience it at their own pace. Sure, it has the benefit of being able to lock doors behind you, and there aren’t 300 other tiny men with jaundice trying to do everything in it at the same time (though I’d love to see that?) but I couldn’t help but be impressed with the flow.

(This may relate to me seeing Sleep No More before it closes just before playing this, finding it a hard to navigate mess of meaningless rooms in a warehouse and thinking it was fucking rubbish.)

The reason, really, that this is my game of the year already is that it’s trying to do something specific and it’s doing it as unbelievably fucking well as anyone probably could. Your dexterity won’t be challenged, your brain won’t be taxed, but they don’t need to be. Sure it’s a funhouse mirror, but if someone was to ask me “What’s the UK like?” from now on, I’ll probably just say “Play Thank Goodness You’re Here!”

Will I ever play it again? Absolutely. Not for a long time, I think, but I didn’t technically see “everything” according to the achievements, and I’d like to.

Final Thought: For categorisation sake, I would like to mention that I do think that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is largely specifically English, and Northern English at that, but there are enough commonalities and it features a big role for Davey Swatpaz that I think it’s fair to think of it as extremely British anyway. And speaking of the excellent casting, Matt Berry is in this and as always he’s brilliant. There are few games where I’d say “I really hope you run out and buy this” but there are few things that are such polished diamonds, and even though this was funded by Panic, who apparently have enough money that they can piss it up on a wall on the world’s most niche handheld (hey, I still bought it) smaller games are having such a rough time of it that when they’re good we should really, you know, reward that. Don’t just do it for me; do it for Tiny Tom. Or Big Ron.*

*pie size preference depending.

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[meddwlyngymraeg]

I'd love to hear some more happy sounding Welsh songs! can be any genre. also any songs about the sea! diolch!!

Shwmae! Amazingly, you are the literal target audience for Ynys' first album ('Ynys', 2022). Dylan Hughes is from Aberystwyth and spent many years in Cardiff and found himself longing for the seaside he grew up in, and when he finally started writing music as Ynys (he used to be in a cool indie psychedelic band called Race Horses too, if that's your thing), he put together a whole album only to realise how much of it is about the sea. I mean, his band is literally called Ynys (Island)!

Also, he has that wonderful, lush psychedelic pop sound, which I think sounds pretty happy musically, though there are definitely some themes of longing, being lost, culture and language, all that good stuff thrown in too. It's complex, but I still feel it's quite a happy listen!

So some songs from the album I'd recommend - Môr Du (Black Sea), Welcome to the Island (now technically this is an instrumental, don't know where that sits!), There's Nothing The Sea Doesn't Know.

My personal favourite off the album is Caneuon (‘Songs’, references the Gorky's Zygotic Mynci song 'Gegin Nos'—more on them in a sec—and also a pretty happy/reminiscing/wistful song), but the whole album is quite good, and their recent second album Dosbarth Nos also has some lovely songs that lift my mood at least— Aros Amdanat Ti, Gyda Ni, Dosbarth Nos. Also the sea references continue!

I'm linking their Bandcamp page rather than a Spotify because Dylan makes sure to include lyrics and translations on there (and in physical liner notes), if you or anyone else reading this was interested in going into the lyrics! (Also I usually feel like I should give people the option to directly support musicians if they feel inclined, where Spotify pays not even cents for most music.) But these two albums are on streaming if you'd like too!

I've also gotta recommend some Gorky's! Their 1997 album's called Barafundle, named after Barafundle Beach, and while I don't think any of the songs are directly about the sea itself (except like The Barafundle Bumbler, which uh. Your mileage may vary. It’s about a voyeur bloke that sits by the seaside on said beach), but there's Diamond Dew which is such a lovely tune, and while not about the sea, Patio Song (i.e. everyone's favourite Gorky's song) has that lovely outro of 'it is raining, so take my hand, the winter's so long, it takes so much of the earth'. ☔️🌧🌈 Happy music, some of Gorky's work! (Personal fave off the album: Starmoonsun <3)

(Also this song's in English but since we're talking about Gorky's I can't not recommend Spanish Dance Troupe. Gorgeous song.)

There's also the super cool Adwaith, who wrote the song Lan Y Môr. This song is actually a lot older than the album it ended up on, 2022's Welsh Music Prize winning Bato Mato, Adwaith are still the only musicians to win the Prize twice. They wrote the song and released it as a single back in early 2020 and it was following a run of really cool punky Cymraeg singles. Love Adwaith, they're quite cool.

Edit: HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN. The queen of the beaches. Gwenno herself. I guess I hadn’t included her because this isn’t technically a Welsh language album (save for one song, N.Y.C.A.W. (Nid Yw Cymru Ar Werth)). Gwenno is half-Welsh, half-Cornish, and this album was basically written down at St. Ives. This does sound like it, and I love this song Anima!

Hope you like these! People can totally feel free to add on in the notes if I’ve missed something!

[foolondahill17]

Inevitably, when Dean wakes to find Cas gone from bed, he experiences a swift, dizzying rush of panic. Ice water shivers down his body from the crown of his head to his toes, as if someone broke a water balloon over his skull.

Sometimes it comes with the last vestiges of a nightmare, clinging to his skin like black sludge. Other times it’s merely his brain registering the absence before he’s even fully awake, attuned to Cas beside him like he used to be unflinchingly aware of Sam snoring softly in the bed parallel to his own in a motel room.

His left hand fists around the empty sheets beside him for several seconds, air rattling in his lungs as he breathes into the gray, filmy light coming into through the blinds in slats. The empty place on the bed is still warm, which means Cas hasn’t been gone long. Maybe he woke from his own nightmare or to get a glass of water or take a piss or maybe fetch a snack or because of some ache or pain; his human body wasn’t exactly reliable, delicate and unfamiliar to a being used to occupying a lightwave for untold millennia. Maybe he just couldn’t sleep.

Maybe it was the Empty. Come to renege on their deal.

Dean fumbles for his phone on the bedside table. The screen nearly blinds him, and he squints into through his lashes to see it’s later than he expected. Dean shuts his eyes, swallows, tries to ground himself back into his body.

When he’s finally calm enough, he tunes into the faint sounds from outside the door and down the hall. He can hear the coffeemaker sputtering and Miracle’s toes clacking on the tile.

Dean swings his legs over the side of the bed, spine twanging. He takes it slow: carefully presses the soles of his bare feet against the chilled floor, stretching for his cane hung on the bedpost, before he straightens himself out, gritting his teeth through the residual stiffness. He needs his cane more than ever in the morning, when sleep fuses his spine into an inflexible and painful rod, legs refusing to bend as they should after so many hours of inactivity.

He shuffles across the floor to find the bedroom door unlatched. His knuckles, swollen with arthritis from the cool morning air, are grateful. It’s hard enough just gripping his cane on mornings like this.

He feels old. He’s only forty-four years old, by all accounts a young man for a civilian. It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage. He grins at the quote. Years of untreated head trauma may have left his memory faulty in other ways, but Indy always lives at the forefront of his mind.

It’s brighter in the kitchen than the bedroom. The large sliding doors that lead to Dean’s garden in the backyard reveal dark gray, threatening clouds. The wind rustles the yellowing leaves of the large oak tree overhanging the garden, swiveling their lighter bellies to the sky.

Cas’s back is to Dean, fussing with the buttons on the coffeemaker, but he turns when Dean reaches his elbow. Dean uses his free arm to wrap it around Cas’s back, pulling himself into his angel’s space. Cas turns fully into Dean so they hold each other chest to chest. Cas’s hair tickles Dean’s nose. His large hand runs up and down Dean’s back, palm nearly scalding in the early autumn chill of the kitchen.

They don’t speak. Cas hates mornings and usually won’t talk until he’s had at least one mug of coffee. And Dean. Well, Dean hasn’t spoken for nearly two years.

Cas is the first to detach. The coffeemaker beeps, shrill in the silence of the kitchen. Cas fetches mugs, and Dean eases himself into a chair at the kitchen table. As soon as he’s seated, Miracle trots in from the living room, holding her favorite plastic green bone in her mouth.

She drops her toy at Dean’s feet and settles with her chin on his knee. Dean tangles his fingers into her hair, letting her warmth bleed into his aching hand.

Cas joins him at the table, sliding one mug in front of Dean before taking a long sip from his own. Dean watches Cas’s throat bob as he swallows his coffee, the pink, silvery scar taught across his neck moving in time with his Adam’s apple. Dean has a matching scar on his own throat. The price of the Empty to return Cas to him: Cas’s grace and Dean’s voice.

Dean pushes a pile of books and mail aside so he can get to his coffee. He’ll need to go to the post office today to mail Jack their book; they left it here over the weekend, but they need it for classes. Dean takes a sip of his coffee: scalding and deep black, just as he and Cas take it.

“It’s going to storm,” Cas finally breaks the silence after his coffee is half gone, and Dean bites back a smile. Cas’s becoming predictable in his humanity.

Dean agrees with a nod.

“Do you need to cover your plants?” Cas asks. Dean’s grateful for Cas’s concern; he knows there’s nothing on earth more boring to the angel than gardening.

Dean shakes his head, no. The only thing left in the ground this time of year is heartier root vegetables, potatoes and carrots, or the sprawling mess of his pumpkin patch that will withstand the hard rain.

Dean’s nearly done with his first cup of coffee and Cas already returned with his second when he pulls up his phone, squinting at the small screen. Cas nearly bit Dean’s head off the last time Dean dared suggest he get reading glasses.

Cas huffs through several article headlines, giving the list of alerts on Sam’s hunter algorithm a cursory glance. Later, he might go back to one or two, but, for now, nothing demands his immediate attention or needs to be redirected to one of Sam and Eileen’s hunter pairs. He sets his phone aside and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Dean fishes for Cas’s hand across the table, weaving their fingers together. Cas drops his hand from his face and grips Dean’s with both of his own. Dean smiles at his angel, hair still mussed from bed, graying at his temples, and wrinkles carved like canyons around his eyes and lips.

I love you, Dean mouths, and Cas takes it with his own smile.

“I love you, Dean.”

Cas likely won’t notice if Dean’s a little clingier than usual today. He’s not very good at picking up those kinds of signals. But he’ll be patient enough with Dean’s lingering touches and shadowing him from room to room as Cas refuses to sit still, frenetic and antsy on days when they’re confined to the house.

Maybe Dean will make a warm soup and sandwiches for lunch. They could watch a movie, cuddled together on the couch, if he can manage to tie Cas down. Cas is liable to climb onto the roof if there’s a proper storm; likes to give Dean a damn heart attack by standing on the gable with his arms outstretched and eyes shut against the torrential rains and wind.

You don’t think you deserve to be saved? Cas asked Dean, all those years ago. Dean still isn’t so sure, some days, what he deserves. He’s been an unlucky bastard, by most reckoning. By Dean’s, he’s been damn lucky. If he’d known what was waiting for him, all these years later, he thinks he’d have spent less time thinking about what was and wasn’t deserved, and more time wondering if it was all worth it.

Mornings like this, he thinks it was.

Read on AO3 if you'd like

[popculturebuffet]

It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage Finale: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy archelogists and welcome to the final installment of my Indiana Jones Retrospective, It's Not the Years, It's the Milleage. For those just joining us for the epic conculsion, i've covered all four previous Indy films over the past few months, from the good with great action set pieces, iconic lines, and deft character work, to the bad with the uncomfortable amount of brown face, temple of dooms theme park version of india and support of colonolisim, and Crystal Skulls sterotpyical 'savage tribesman", to the just plain weird with aborted ideas such as a haunting in scottland, a chess game to the death, sun wukong vs indiana jones, and an out and out alien invasion which Indy makes out during suprising no one.

IT's been one long, LONG journey and today.. it ends, as does the film franchise. With Dial of Destiny. Dial is the main reason we did this: a fresh fim with ford, with a fresh director in Logan maestro James Mangold, a final chapter for the ages.. and it has been recived with a resounding

Yeah while there was some hype for this film from Fans of Mangold or Indy (Of which i'm now both) it's now gotten to the point Wikipedia has out and out labeled it a box office bomb and Naturally the failure of this film has been taken with grace and restraint by the internet

It hasn't helped that Indy has come out in a summer with plummeting box office from usual money makers, so people are only more on their "Why aren't people seeing these films" kick. When really the reasons aren't new. We have "Doing the same shit a diffrent day instead of going with what was new and working " (Transformers rise of the beasts), "Another film outboxing it" (Elemental), "The company behind it simply not promoting it at all" (Ruby Gilman, which I intend to review at some point), " or "Oopsie we hired a pedophile as our leading actor, have no idea where we were taking this franchise when we started this film, and our company is ran by an evil overlord no one likes whose actively made the media landscape worse ever since he took over, better hope our promotoinal tactics work..."

The issues aren't new, their simply finding hitting people over the head.. and that's what happened here. Indy had an uphill battle: I was only invested at first because James Mangold was directing it and Logan is still one of the best superhero movies ever made. I got more invested thanks to this retrospective. Given Disney's slipshod treamant of star wars and terrible treatment of last jedi as well as the mcu being a mess right now, it's not a huge leap that many audiences really didn't want to gamble on ANOTHER disney live action movie that just looked okay, no matter how much Phoebe Waller Bridge or Antonio Bandareas it had. While it's sad as I honestly don't think the film deserved THIS much of a bomb.. I can't blame audiences for waiting for Disney Plus. We simply live in an era now where most people have tons of streamers or will get one for a month to watch one movie and anything else they've caught up on. We're simply entering an era where having a big brand name isn't a guarantee and in this case can be a curse if that name is disney. Big franchises can work, see Spider-Verse and Scream VI making great money, but you have to have something to offer.

So come with me under the cut as we see if Indy has just that or is best left in the past

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHOYHOY

When I'm Gone, He's Gone

As you'd expect, Lucas still wanted to make a 5th film after Skull, with Speilberg and Ford on board as always. This time though..

Lucas himself went to the press saying he wanted to do something new and Speilberg was stuck in the past... which I translate as Lucas once again went kinda nuts on the premise while , much like after Temple of Doom, Speilberg wanted something a tad more grounded to avoid making the same mistake twice. It comes off as the two just could never quite agree on what to do and eventually.. decided to let the franchise move on without him, selling it and the rest of Lucasfilm to Disney. Disney naturally wanted an indy film right away and after getting the distribution rights one year later in 2023.. it took them a decade.

Yeahhh while we got the sequel trilogy pretty fast in hollywood time it took a good decade for Indy to put his hat on. At first there were rumors floated about about recasting, then it was settled on ford, then Speilberg was set to direct and the film proceded to go through a ton of writers, from Crystal Skull's david koepp

And even Dan Fogelman of This is Us royalty was floated as one of the writers. The film also got delayed thanks to Speilbergs work on Ready Player One and the Post, before he eventually stepped off all together. He claimed it was to pass it on to a fresh director, but it really feels like his heart wasn't in it anymore, and it was best someone whose heart was took the lead.

Enter James Mangold, director of The Wolverine, Logan and Kicker of ass. Mangold was a solid choice and my book and along with his usual co-writers Jez and John Henry Butterworth, who I assure you are real people but cannot assure you aren't old timey prospectors sent forward in time, hashed out the script.

Casting went smoothly, as did filiming, with the only hiccup being production's start being delayed because of COVID. They shot in morocco, england, ireland and spain, along with the us as you'd expect. Speilberg wasn't entirely detached as he still advised and watched dalies, ultimately loving the final product. So now we can actually look at that product let's start with how it writes Indy himself. The Mileage Adds Up

One of the things that made me not really enjoy Doom or Crystal.. was a lack of character work. Indy was about the same as when he started the adventure in contrast to Raiders and Last Crusade taking him on a wonderful character journey, in the former getting his passion back and in the later reconcliing with his dad. Dial of Destiny dosen't reach those highs, but I still think it does a decent job. The opening.. is okay detailing Indy having an adventures in the last day sof the third reich, setting up both Helna's Dad and our big bad, as well as Archimedes Dial, basied on the real life Antyhkiera Mechanism. I really do love the dial as a plot device as it's a departure, being the only one of the five to not involve a god of some sort, and yes the alien counts. It's just a time machine a famous philospher made. It's still fucking neat, I mean IT'S A TIME MACHINE A FAMOUS PHILSOPHER MADE, but it's a bit more grounded while still being pretty damn nifty.

So while the intro is mostly.. eh for me, what it does really well... is contrast the indy we know.. with where he is in 1969: Unlike Crystal Skull, which glossed over the massive amount of time passed, here were with an indy who feels both his age.. and that he's been left behind by the world. That time has taken everything from him: his friends, his father, his marriage.. and his son. He's left to yell at the neighbors, go to a class that dosen't pay attention and have a retirment party he clearly dosen't want. Granted his retirment does feel like a missed opportunity as wikipedia mentioned it pre-release as being forced out due to speaking out against operation paper clip, something that I either missed.. or more likely simply ISN'T in the film. It's a real shame, the idea is great it's just not present. This creates a really intriguing Parallel: Indy at the start of the last adventure of his we'll see is a broken down man whose years of adventuering have left a mark on him, who is estranged from Marion, has not a ton to live for, and is clearly only loosely holding it together. And the Indy we met in Raiders.. is a broken down man whose years of adventuring left a mark on him, is estranged from marion, has not a ton to live for and is clearly only loosely holding it together. The diffrence is how tired Indy is. In his late 30's he's beaten a bit and reduced to graverobbing.. but the minute he gets a real assignemnt int he grail, he jumps to it. He has his job, he has his friendship with marcus, and he's able to fix things with marion. He's not completely gone, he's just lost. Indy in Dial... has watched all his friends and his son, more on that in a minute, die, his marriage fall apart, and his job slip out under him. Without his job.. he's a man without a purpose.

This also ironically creates another Scrooge McDuck parallel, another bit of symmetry and one I didn't plan on till I started writing this and thought of the story: Indy reminds me a lot of Scrooge in the final part of Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Both are seasoned adventueres who have either pushed away anyone they have left or lost them and feel they just have nothing left but to slowly rot away.

And like Scrooge it takes a bolt of inspiration from the new generation after him to get Indy back in the game. In this case it's the highlight of the film, Helena Shaw, played by the wonderful, funderful fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. WB likely dosen't need any introduction but just in case she was showrunner of the successful and inventive stage show turned amazon prime show fleabag, showran killing eve and in general is pretty delightful. So it's no huge suprise she's great as Helena Shaw, daughter of Marcus Indy's sidekick for the intro who became obessed with our titular macguffin, Archemedis Dial, which can travel through time some time, though not to the end of all man kind. Helena is a neat character in that they managed to make her distinct while still giving her enough similarties to indy to serve well as his shadow, his ghost of sins past, him in his prime. She's also a brilliant archelogist, has a kid sidekick like indy did in temple of doom with Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidoore), sells priceless artifacts for a profit, has a messy love life, kicks plenty of ass, and tries to command every room she's in. What helps seperate them is their demeanor: Indy is gruff, snarky and surly. While Helena can snark with the best of them, she's fast talking, fast thinking, and tends to use charm as much as the old Indy Guile both heroes posses. The main diffrence is rather than sell to museums, she sells to private collectors...

Okay the REAL difference is that she's only in it for the money while Indy at least, on some level, cared about the history even at his lowest. Helena just sees all her father could do and all she learned from being around him before his passing as a way to get. Once again like Indy.. she had a father who cared more about some big treasure than her child.. and a godfather who cared more about what was going on in his life than ever checking up on her. She's a person whose been left to her own devices and feels she's doing just fine.. but honestly could be putting her talents to better use. Maybe not in a school like indy, but she could help return artifacts to their countries... probably still for a pretty penny, but not just to some random asshole to sit in his den.

You can tell dealing with her just makes Indy feel even more tired, which is somehow possible after all he's been through. He's once again seeing a ghost of his past and this time can't seem to get it through her head. When she celebrates shortly after his friend Renaldo dies, he has to sharply remind her. Nothing seems to get through to her.. till we get to THAT scene. Probably the best scene of the film. The climax is awesome.. but it's this one moment. On a boat at night, Helena asks Indy what he'd do with the dial, clearly thinking some grand adventure.. instead Indy: I'd stop my son from enlisting Helena: And how would you do that? Indy: I would tell him that he would die, that his mother would be overcome with a grief so intense that his father would be unable to console her, and that it would end their marriage. The sheer PAIN Ford conveys during that monologue.. may be the finest acting he's ever done. You can just FEEL Indy's loss; his son is gone, his marriage is torn, and he blames himself for both. It gives a horrible pathos to why he's so broken down. Both developments.. coudl've been really cheap. With how much everyone but me seems to hate mutt, and how rightly no one can stand shia suprise these days, most were expecting..

Instead Mutt's death is used as the catalyst for Indy's slow spiral into dispair. He would've been happy in retirment.. but he lost his son, his wife.. he's a man truly with nothing left he feels. And while he gets some old spark back unlike Scrooge.. he's fighting it every step. He dosen't want an adventure, he dose'nt want anything but his son back, and he knows damn well that even if the dial could... the sad truth is it likely has some horrible cost to it. The grail gave eternal life but bound you to a spot. The Skull gave you the knowledge of an unknowable alien god, but drove you mad. The arc killed anyone who looked. If the Dial even works... he knows it can't bring his son back, and he's only going after it because it's better in a museum than in the hands of Nazis. We also see a change in Helena. She goes from following Indy's lead out of nececity, to seeing his point, to seeing the beauty of the world instead of just the dollar signs. She still wants the money.. but she starts to see the beauty in history instead of the dollar. I also like that this isn't easy on Teddy, who sees her postive changes as coming between him and his surrogate mom, when really she fully intends to stick with Teddy no matter what and shows nothing but loyalty.. and in the end.. they dont' really finish that arc

I like Teddy a lot, and I wish this had more of a bow on it, though we do get him taking down a nazi and trapping him to drown and later getting into a dogfight. Teddy slaps is what i'ms aying> He dosen't have a ton of deep character to explore, but he's fucking great.

This all really cumulates in the climax.. which is so great i'd rather save it for after we cover one last major character, our antagonist. Our big bad is Mads Mikkelsen as Jurgen Voller, a thereoticain who wants the dial. At first Indy assumes, as most of the audience would that Voller simply wants the dial, which he's shown to obess over to win the war for hitler. Turns out Voller's plan is more complex. We see in the intro how Voller is the ONLY one who both sees the dial's value among the nazi's and the writing on the wall: Hitler is almost gone, he fucked them over. It's over. And thus the horror of Voller isn't like with Thot , at the giant horrifying nazi machine and all their power, and more at evil allowed to hide in plain sight. At a society who forgives horrible people because their useful. Voller got a free pass thanks to operation paperclip.. and the film shows while that idea got us tons of advances including space flight.. it came at the cost of giving horrible people real power and influence. The president is outright giving voller a MEDAL. And he hasn't changed: a truly chilling bit has him talking to a black bellhop delivering meal and asking where he came from.. and dismissing him saying he came from america. Voller is every bit the white supremacist monster he ever was, he's completely loyal to the idea of the nazi's. .just not to hitler. Voller's whole plan isn't to help hitler.. but to take him out, replace him and have someone compitent win. And he only gets as fara s he does because the goverment willingly works with him, gives him agents, goes after Helena and the dial. They know what he his but fully aid and abet him. Sure they eventually realize he's gone rogue, that his pet agent is entirely in his pocket.. but they don't turn on him till far too late and with one of their great agents dead. Concidentaly I feel Agent Mason is wasted: she's the calm rational agent.. but she's also the only major black character in the film and gets killed by a nazi. That's.. entirely fucked up and while I suspect inteitonally fucked up it just dosen't work for me.

Voller is also once again, much like with Belloc, an evil mirror of indy: Both are geniuses who adore history.. but one's a good person despite being gruff while one seems harmless when we first meat him but is actually a total monster. Mads does a great job showing just how evil the guy is without going over the top. Voller is determind to change history... and he does.. just not how he wanted to.

This Ain't 1933!

The climax.. is fucking awesome. Like Crystal Skull it goes beyond what the series had done before, if not more so. It's arguably even MORE over the top. But it works. For those who haven't seen the film... INDY GOES BACK IN TIME. The dial DOES indeed work.... but it's set up to ONLY go back to this point. Helena points out the idea of "loaded decks' earlier.. and realizes the dial is one. Archimedes only left it behind to create a stable time loop.

Indy going back into actual history is nuts, entirely and my jaw dropped at it.. but it's so damn fun. Our heroes not only have to escape the plain and get the dial back after it drops onto the coast, but survive the Siege of Syracuse, the roman invasion that eventaully resulted in Archimedes end. So we have two planes flying overhead, arrows everywhere and nazis versus romans. It's over the top but not in a way that really undermines the franchise, and frankly as what's intended to be the final act of indy ever, it's a fitting finale: the man whose explored history in the present.. gets to LITERALLY go to the past for his final adventure. I do get how not everyone will agree, and it won't work for everybody, this may be a bit tooo over the top, but I love it and feel it nicely ties up everyone's character arcs.

For Voller he gets to join history.. but instead of "fixing" it like he wanted he dies horribly and is forgotten to history only the "dragon" (his palne" is left.. and cleverly foreshadowed earlier when Teddy watches a puppet show. His nazi's all die and it's glorious to watch nazi after nazi go down from arrows or our two heroes escaping the plane while teddy takes the rest down with the help of a hapless pilot.

We then get the payoff for both Helena and Indy, as Indy gives the dial to archimedes.. and plans to stay. After all we established he's lost everything... why would he go back? He'll die soon.. but he's cconvinced he'll die soon back in the present. It's Helena who'se ultimately changed realizing both the value of history.. and ultimately the movie's moral: you can't change the past, but you can live for today. Helena can't change her awful upbringing or the things she's done.. but she can be better. And Indy can't save his son from death, save archimedes from death or be a better husband to marion during the greving process.. but he can be better to her and still live now. He still has so much to offer. He taught helena to love history and to try and be better. He gave his son a better life even if it was sadly cut short. He can be better. And when he can't be convinced the easy way she proves she's fully earned her way to being indy's succesor and just clubs him and takes him back (the dial has to go back with them as archimedes needs to make his own). The end scene also mostly works for me: Indy is back at his apartment.. but finds he's not alone as when he woke up there last time: Not only has Helena forgiven him, having realized much like Indy himself that warts and all, he's family, but Sallah, who I haven't gotten to talk about is here. Sallah is great in this film, not only helping Indy when he needs to lay low but enocuraging his friend it's not over. It's also nice to see Indy helped him and his family immigrate and that he's teaching his grand kids egyptian. It's also a nice way to still have davies play the roll.. but have him get a bit more depth and make up for a white guy playing the roll.

And last but not least.. Marion returns, and the two reconcile. I thought it was a bit easy when I frist saw it.. but I see now i'ts more the idea they have a long road ahead.. but both are willing to see it together.. Indy admits he was wrong and Marion is willing to give him another shot. For the third time but at least this time it's likely she just needed some psace to realize he wasn't being callous he just wasn't processing his grief.. and now he's ready to.. maybe they have a shot. It's a nice way to close out the films: Indy's life isn't over, he's got friends, he's got his wife.. and there's always another rainbow.

Assorted Other Stuff: The action set pieces as usual are fucking great, my faviorites easily being the climax and the diving adventure. The latter reminded me a lot of Tin Tin, Red Rackam's Treasure. Antonio Banderas is great as Reynaldo and I only wihs he had a bigger part.. and survived. It's not a huge suprise, saying Antonio Banderas is great. While I LIKED the finale with Marion, I'm with Karen Allen. They could've used her more. She deserves better dammit. WHy is it with the sequels they just can NEVER get bringing her back right?

Last but not least.. ther'es this weird subplot only brought up in the first two acts where the government frames indy for Murder that just.. never gets resolved? Like they never adressed it and as far as I can tell there's no resolution. Now granted I still think Indy isn't going to be arrested: He's clearly been unconcious for a week and Helena did have to get him back into the US, so it's likely the goverment found out about voller, got a debrief from helena.. and agreed to clear her and indy's record and absolve him of murder in exchange for never talking about this to anyone, as a Nazi escaping and killing one of their agents , after they pardoned the guy wouldn't look good. But we needed a line. It's easily the most baffling decision in otherwise a really godo film.

So finally we're , like indy back where we started.. was the film that bad?

When writing the reviews for Crystal Skull and Temple, I honestly hated the films MORE the more I thought abotu them, the more I found wrong, the more I realized how little they did. With this film. it's the opposite. The more I examine dial, the more I find to like. The character arcs, the action, the payoff. It's not perfect, again Indy is still kinda wanted for murder among other little plot gaffes, but I do think Dial is a solid entry in the series and better than both temple and skull at capturing what made the series graet. It dosen't nail it perfectly.. but it's still a fun ride with some really good character work and phenominal performances. Really indy failed.. because no one cares outside of fans of the franchise. As my brother put it when talking about this very film recently, kids don't know indy. It's not the big hit with kids star wars was and is. Star Wars will likekly rebound someday because Kids still dig it and kids will grow up with the sequels the way I grew up with the prequels, warts and all. Disney just assumed Indy was enough to carry it and he wasn't. I'm sad at it because not only is this a good film, but I was hoping for more pulp adventure films. But i'm also happy at what we got and to have done this journey. I saw the good, and the bad. And I saw a franchise I ended up really loving. In the end I got what I needed out of this franchise

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Consequences of Getting Lightly Stabbed

I have been WAITING to get the hardcopies of the re-releases of this fabulous series to do individual reviews of each book, because this series is my ultimate comfort series. This series hits a ton of my favorite points. It is urban fantasy, does some amazing things with both Irish and Native American lore, has a fabulous slow burn romance, has GARRISON MATTHEW MULDOON, and a protagonist with attitude. It also has one of the strongest writer voices ever. Literally every CE Murphy book SOUNDS like a CE Murphy book, but without compromising the voice of the protagonist. That is a skill that is a hella rare delight. So let me introduce you to Joanne Walker--nee Siobhan Walkingstick--as we talk Urban Shaman.

This is you SPOILER WARNING because this book is too damn good and I want to talk all about it. This is also a CONTENT WARNING for anyone sensitive to novels focusing on cops, because while this series is not entirely uncritical of them, we do spend a lot of time with and around them, and Morrison in particular has idealized being a cop. The book was originally published in 2005, so a LOT has happened since then. Your mileage may vary.

So this series has a bit of a story to it, and if you've been hanging out around my bookshelf for a while, you've seen me mention this series before. It was originally published traditionally starting in 2005. The author had to make a couple of concessions for the series (including relegating a novella to "book 1.5" rather than making it book 2 and a title that she SUPER did not like), but the series did well and its fans love it deeply. I picked it up in...like 2010? Ish? It was early in my undergrad, because I made a dear friend who did not stop talking about this series. So I picked it up, read it, loved it. Fast forward to the 2020s and I believe it was sometime during the pandemic that Murphy got the rights back to this series and decided to rerelease them with new covers, a new order that includes book 1.5 as book 2, and a title change for book 4/5. I tend to be a practical reader; it's rare I collect for titles or special editions. This time though? I made an exception. I want these beauties on my shelf and I want to support this indie rerelease. Also I haven't done a reread of the series in a few years, so this is going to be just a sheer delight for me.

Ok, context having been contextualized, let's jump right into this book.

Joanne Walker is a hot mess. On page one of book one, she is in her mid-twenties, is estranged from a messy relationship with her father and her Cherokee heritage, met her very Irish mother four months ago and buried her days ago, is estranged from her Irish heritage, has lost her job because she overextended her bereavement leave, and is carrying around a metric ton of trauma related to getting pregnant with twins at fifteen and losing one baby shortly after giving birth and giving the other up for adoption shortly after that. And that's literally square one.

I honestly don't know how well I would handle getting fatally stabbed by the god of the Wild Hunt after not sleeping for over 24 hours, but for Joanne, this is just the start of tracking and catching a serial murderer who is killing people who are powerful in or connected to "another plane of existence." It's also the beginning of a new journey for Joanne, because she has power--specifically healing power--and the cost of not dying on a fae blade is learning to use it. She gets help from Marie D'Ambra--who Joanne spots from a plane and briefly rescues from Cernnunous--Coyote, Billy Holliday (a coworker and family friend), and Garrison Matthew Muldoon (Gary; cab driver extraordinaire and kickass septuagenarian sidekick). However, baby shaman (or gwyld, depending on which language you want to use) Joanne is super caught on her back foot and just barely manages to stay ahead of Hearne and Cernunnos long enough to stay alive and keep the Wild Hunt bound into its endless cycle.

The fact that before she met her mother Joanne was also a hardcore realist and pragmatist doesn't help either; she has to not only change her worldview, but she has to get out of her own damn way to do it. And she has to do it while changing jobs. She was a police mechanic who went to the academy on the recommendation (and pressure) from a previous boss. So when her current boss, Captain Morrison, is told by HIS superior that he is not allowed to fire the half-Cherokee woman in his department whose only crime was overextending her bereavement leave, he ends up "promoting" her to foot patrol. Admittedly this was on the expectation that Joanne would leave on her own, because this woman doesn't want to be a cop. This would have worked with lots of other people, but Joanne and Morrison are the most awkward of ducks, and she is too stubborn to quit.

There's also the small matter that when Morrison and Joanne first met, she didn't know he was the new boss and she mocked him MERCILESSLY for misidentifying her muscle car, Petite. And they never really recovered from that little incident, but Morrison is damn good at his job, so when Joanne can produce actual results, he grinds his teeth and coaches her in her new position to be the best she can be, help people, and get the job done. And he manages to be the best grouchy boss with a heart of gold even in this first book where he isn't the most sympathetic and I don't think is MEANT to be the most sympathetic. But when Joanne wipes out on concrete stairs, he's the one there with the smelling salts until it's clear she's ok. When Joanne has to deal with the death of a witness to a school stabbing who was under police protection and Joanne feels guilty for putting a target on her back, it's Morrison who is there going "It's not your fault. But you can do something about it."

Guys, I ship Joanne and Morrison so hard, even in this first book. They're honestly a really interesting and solid couple. I don't want to derail this with Morrison, but I do want to just highlight my favorite interaction between Morrison and Joanne in this entire book. This is Joanne being deeply sleep deprived and filterless, and while Morrison manages to stay pretty much professional, he's HONEST with her:

"Why do I bug you so much?" This was probably not the time to get into it, but I was suddenly incredibly curious. Morrison arched his eyebrows. "No, really," I said." I mean, I know we got off to a bad start, although I still can't believe you didn't know a Mustang from a Corvette--" "I was never into cars." "Obviously. What were you into?" Morrison stared at me over the edge of his coffee cup, then put it back down. "Being a cop." "What, when you were like nine? Fifteen? You wanted to be a cop, not to drive fast cars and pick up girls?" I took an incredulous bite of the apple fritter. "Yeah. I never wanted to be anything but a cop. And that, Walker, is why you irritate me." Morrison looked like he was at war with his own body language, trying to force himself to relax back into his seat while the intense low pitch of his voice drove him to lean forward, speaking to me sharply. "You fell into a job I spent my whole life working for. You irritate me because I think being a police officer is a calling and a solemn occupation and you're carrying a badge without it meaning a damn thing to you. You hang out with my officers in your off time, being just that damned cool, an attractive woman who talks cars and drinks beer and arm wrestles. None of them give a damn that you were in the top third of your class at the academy and that you're wasting your skills in the Motor Pool playing with engines. But it bugs the hell out of me. That is why you irritate me."

Literally I think this is my favorite exchange of theirs in this book, but it cannot be said that this is comfortable or amicable. It's tense and frustrated and I kinda love that.

Now, Morrison is amazing, but even Morrison does not hold a candle to Gary. Gary picks Joanne up from the airport and then spends three days tagging along and snarking as she figures out her powers and gets entangled in murders and goes on a self-directed crash course in healing magic. Gary is HERE for an interesting time with a lifetime of diverse experience, an open mind, and honestly a big squishy center. We are gonna spend like the next six books with people accusing Joanne of dating him and it is the best thing ever because she makes herself an easy target about it and Gary is deeply entertained by it. I've talked about Gary's backstory in detail here, so I won't go too much into it here. But Garrison Matthew Muldoon is the best person in the series, end of conversation. We love him so much.

We can mostly skip over the other cops, but we should address Billy. Because aside from being aware of other planes of existence, Billy is pretty awesome and will become a pretty important secondary character in further books. The poor man leans into his name as best he can, he's a wonderful dad and a decent detective. We also adore Billy.

We also need to address Cernunnos and Suzy. Because despite a fairly antagonist relationship in this book, Joanne and Cernunnos sort of settle into the friends who have sheer animal magnetism and a snarktastic dynamic who nonetheless have each other's backs. We get a lot more of Cernunnos and he is kind of the first touchpoint for the Irish half of Joanne's heritage and powers as Coyote is for the Cherokee half. (We'll address Coyote later; for now he's just cute and furry but that's gonna change.)

Suzy shows up again in book 4/5, and she kind of represents Joanne's first save. Because until Suzanne Quinley at the end of this book, Joanne can't save ANYONE. Hearne's body count is like seven shamans, Suzanne's adoptive parents, a 60-something schoolteacher, and four high school kids in this book before he heads for his biological daughter to sacrifice her to unbind the Hunt. Joanne can't save any of them, and it eats her. She DOES save Suzy though, and Suzy is really the person who proves to Joanne that she really can make a go of the shaman thing and she really can make a difference in people's lives.

This is the book I recommend to people who tell me they like the Dresden Files, because the vibes are similar without the paternalism, chauvanism and dickheaded machismo. Also, where Dresden Files make me FURIOUS, Joanne makes me cry good tears, especially in later books. Her story is about healing and finding humanity and community when you think you've lost them forever. I adore these books, and we'll definitely be talking more about them as the the rereleases keep coming.

[viscericorde]

Do you have any good inde or small businesses that sell good quality alt clothing? I've been struggling to find any good shit lately, and I'm hoping you could possibly help my dilemma 😕 😔

idk if most/any of the places i shop from count as indie honestly ;o;! but here are the brands i shop from most regularly and can vouch for the quality of tho.

Disturbia (https://www.disturbia.co.uk/en-us) - i buy a lot of my most-loved/most-worn pieces from here! some stuff on the pricier end but quality is worth it 4 me. check the garment measurements instead of just going by the size chart bc it can sometimes be wacky. darker/gothy aesthetics, a nice mix of edgier/rougher pieces but also some nice frilly feminine stuff!

Minga London (https://us.mingalondon.com/) - i refer to this one in my head as the e-girl store a lot lollll...i do like the stuff they offer but i just have to make my peace w having the same sweater as a lot of tiktok alt girlies. ngl some of the pieces are NAWT worth the price point so i wait for things to go on sale mostly

The Ragged Priest (https://theraggedpriest.com/) - "streetwear" type stuff, a lot louder colors and prints than i usually wear, but there's a fair amount of monochrome/darker stuff that i sort through it for. mostly i buy jeans/pants from here bc that's kind of their main gig and it's v nice quality. higher price point, but also has p frequent sales that i take advantage of!

Lamoda (https://us.lamoda.co.uk/) - shoes!!! i buy most of my platform heels from here. less pricey than demonia but also i never buy anything that isn't on sale

Demonia (https://demoniacult.com/) - shoes again. i specifically only buy platform boots from here. obviously big money. but also i bought a pair of boots back in high school and they are still serving me well now that i have graduated from college so worth it.

i also used to buy from killstar every so often but their recent selection has been so gd ugly i've kind of given up on it, and anything i'd be able to rec from there has been sold out for literal years so. sighh.

a big percentage of the clothes/shoes i have are from these places, but my closet is also supplemented by a lot of "basics" from places that i wouldn't at all consider alt brands lol. sometimes i will head into extremely whitebread shops like urban outfitters or smthn to see if there is anything there that i know i will be able to coordinate with a lot of other stuff i already have, and that helps me out a lot.

also disclaimer for this list that my usual sizes are XS or a US 0 to 2, so i can't rlly speak for the fit of larger sizes or inclusive sizing, sooo your mileage may vary <:3

i know that a lot of these brands are pricier than average so vewy sorry for that orz im just the type of person who can make peace w spending big money on clothes so that may skew my tastes

[moveslikebucky]

Yay!! My Bestie @ouidamforeman tagged me in a fun little AO3 game and I'm still crying about their post and how niceys they were to me in it <3

We've been collaborators on so many projects for so long now that it almost feels like we're a package deal at this point xD (and i love it <3)

1. how many works do you have on Ao3?

177

This isn't counting, I don't think at least, the five or six that I've orphaned over the last year.

2. what’s your total Ao3 word count?

642,686 <3

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Good Omens is by far my largest fandom lol. I have a long abandoned series that's a rewrite of Fallout 4, but no idea if I'll ever get back to it.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

They're all fairly older ones that have been kicking around AO3 for a while <3

well then, ask me to stay (904)

unpath'd waters, undream'd shores (643)

And now I'm ready to feel your hand (545)

Hush, darling...I've got you (532)

All the Idle Weeds That Grow (519)

5. do you respond to comments?

I love to respond to comments! Often they get away from me and I won't for a long chunk of time, and then inevitably the ADHD hyperfixation will kick in and I will answer some 60-120 comments in one go because I let them sit for far too long sometimes xD

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Gonna have to go back old school for this one, I think it would have to be Hopelessly, I'll Love You Endlessly, simply because it implies that Crowley is going to the bar to drink himself into a stupor after Aziraphale's discorporation as a form of suicide. Honorable mention for What good would common sense for it do? which has the two of them spending the night together after Crowley has a mental breakdown about the Spanish Inquisition, which ends with him leaving at the end because he doesn't think he's worth what Aziraphale clearly sees in him. As well as, as Ouida mentioned, I think about you, which ends with Crowley in a very distressed state after masturbating in the shower.

I think... I like torturing that old man. Oh well.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh there's so many of those I might as well list my five favorite happy ending fics:

It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage - My fusion that puts Aziraphale and Crowley in the place of Indy and Marion during Raiders of the Lost Ark. It ends with them proclaiming their love and continuing their mildly illicit affair and lots and lots of kisses.

I won't have a life (until you're dead) - My first big long project with @ouidamforeman will always have a special place in my heart for happy endings. These two found each other despite all of the odds, and now they have eternity together!

Night of the Living Boyfriend! - Me and @ouidamforeman's 70s horror pastiche which I don't think anyone realized would have a happy ending. We certainly jumped through hoops to get there, but it got there all the same.

go where I go, do what I must - This one is going to be a series of interconnected one-shots in the same world but really... Poor little repressed Victorian man deciding to kill himself rather than get married to a woman he doesn't love by sacrificing him to the fae, only to become married to one of them instead? And then get to take part in their bacchanalian cultural customs? AND eventually get to have an orgy with two big Satyr fellas while his husband claps and squeals gleefully? He's living his best happy ending ever!

formation displays of affection - The android fic... oh my beloved android fic. I wrote this one specifically as a vehicle for Ouida to express some of their feelings and thoughts around their autism, and it ends so hopeful and happy and full of love to bursting.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have only gotten hate twice. The first time was on a zine fic once it was published, someone saying that I was a hack and that my writing style was shit so I shouldn't get into zines. They bragged about it in a few discord servers, I've had them blocked since. The big one, as Ouida mentioned in their post, was on formation displays of affection, where apparently we are abelist against ourselves? For writing our experiences? Because the character is a robot. Whack as hell if you ask me.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Oh please honey, you know what blog you're on xD

All kinds of smut every configuration. Solo, couples, orgies... heavy kink, monster fucking. Always unapologetically queer and joyous. A few of my most Out There smut fics for your consideration (the first two are both collabs with Ouida!):

En Eski Aşk Şiiri - Vore sex. It's vore sex! Devour your angel husband for fun and profit!

The Nature of Intricate Rituals - Are they animals? Yes, strictly speaking. Reverse Omens where Crowley is a harpy and Aziraphale is a sphinx and they fuck good and Gadriel (Crowley) lays a lot of eggs and also comes about that.

In The Depths - Dubious consent wherein mech pilot Aziraphale gets fucked via that neural interface by a sea monster. Said sea monster comes back for more in a more compact, human looking form, but he still doesn't quite grasp the limitations of human bodies.

Five Sparrows for a Penny - Five Aziraphale clones give Crowley the ride of his life.

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

I've only written one crossover, and that was The Curious Case of Old Mr. Fell, where Basil of Baker Street and Dr Dawson from The Great Mouse Detective meet Aziraphale.

Fusions though, I have It's Not The Years, It's The Mileage as mentioned above, as well as the group project Reclamation and Reconnaissance which is an au set on Bajor during the events of Deep Space Nine, but with Good Omens characters.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Several times! Mainly into Russian, once into French and Italian I think.

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

The majority of my writing is co-written. Me and Ouida are a great team <3

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Aziraphale and Crowley, hands down.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My Fallout 4 rewrites. I just don't have the hyperfixation energy to work on them anymore.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I"m pretty good with dialogue and with scene details without them being overbearing. Ambience and mood as well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am not good at long form fiction, writing multichapter fics is a struggle for me because I struggle with plot of all things. I'm much more a one-shot person. However, part of the benefit of working with Ouida so much, is that they balance me out and are very good at hammering down worldbuilding and plot points. Also they beta everything I write!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I haven't done it myself yet, but I feel like it's so cool to do! If I can ever get it off the ground, eventually me and Ouida have a cold war spies concept that we're working on and Aziraphale will speak Russian in it a lot of the time.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Teen Titans. Not GO!, the original one.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

God I've written so many it's hard to pick, but I definitely have to say that it's I won't have a life (until you're dead). It will always be that one, forever and ever. That's why I haven't ever changed my profile picture xD

I'm gonna tag uhhhh @ashfae, @entanglednow, @charlottemadison42, and @waldosakimbo

[mywifeleftme]

308: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever // Hope Downs

Hope Downs Rolling Fevers Coastal Blackout 2018, Sub Pop (Bandcamp)

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, one of those borderline-insufferable indie rock names like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Two-Door Cinema Club that seems to confirm every negative stereotype about the genre in a single phrase, rolled into my life in the spring of 2018 and went into near constant rotation for a solid year before slipping almost entirely out of memory until I pulled this record off the shelf today. A Melbourne five-piece with three guitarists who all sing (and all sing kinda the same way), Rolling Fever Coastal Blackouts were owners of the most propulsive jangle of the late part of the decade, the kind of band who put wheels on your feet if you’re walking and wings on your wheels if you’re biking or driving. Absolute summer montagecore lads, and as I sink back into the grooves of their debut LP Hope Downs I’m won over all over again. Nearly any of these songs, with their mileage-eating consistency of four-through-the-floor pace and thousand-yard-stare affect that make three minutes sound like five or seven, could satisfyingly open or close the record or a show. 35 of said minutes is just the perfect amount to leave you balanced on a knife’s edge as to whether to play the whole thing over again if the record’s done and your errand isn’t. There’s an easy mastery of dynamics, the sense of just when to step in with a harmony to kick things up a notch—I’ve seldom heard a better set of these tricks than this record’s “Exclusive Grave.” Jangle pop’s a well-worn genre, so there are plenty of easy names to drop here (Aussie and otherwise), but I don’t think it’s needed—Rolling Coastal Fever Blackouts are a refinement rather than a revolution, but they’re a refinement of a sound that to me’s as necessary to the continuation of life as the song of those ancient monks who can’t stop chanting or the world’ll end. Probably only the spirit-freeing “Talking Straight” transcends Hope Downs’ confines to stand on its own as an enduring anthem, but within its environs, there’s a long ribbon of pleasure that can easily become a figure-eight if you let it.

308/365

[its-the-mileage]

✗ It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. ✗

henry 'indiana' jones jnr. | indie rp | multi-para | multi-verse

[permanentconundrum]

10/04/23

I’ve decided I want to get faster at writing so I am going to blog a few days and try to make a practice of it. I worked on my writer resume tonight. It’s already 9pm. I am kind of tired. Listening to old school indie music. Still no job yet, since August 2022. It might be weird to go back to work. I’ll need to make sure I can wake up early. Read a little philosophy this afternoon. I should check the news in the NYT. I haven’t been paying close attention recently. I talked to a recruiter about a few jobs but they don’t pay great. In the first half of 2022 I started looking at work because I wanted to take the next step. Now I’m taking a step back perhaps. That’s what happens when you don’t work for over a year. I have had time for poetry though. That’s been good. I hope to finish some poems. Read some sad poems in the October issue of Poetry Magazine, but I think poetry is a great place for difficult topics. Reminds me to pray for others, and know someone somewhere is having a difficult time. You aren’t alone in this. I think it’s important to remember those who are suffering. You aren’t alone in this. I kind of want to look at art more. I want to read more too. I read some last night, the October issue of Poetry. The Decemberists are on the radio. I’m thinking about how to manage myself so that I don’t run myself out of energy. Sometimes you need to not use all your energy in one activity so you can focus elsewhere as well. I have a running goal to lose weight by the end of 2023. Send positive vibes. I want to look more like a runner. I pass quite a few runners in town driving around. Running is a big goal. Poetry is too, but I need to find a job so I can pay bills. I’m watching my diet again. I didn’t watch it last week really. It’s rough. I have trouble getting to the gym 7 day/wk. But maybe I just need to build the habit. It is incredibly important to my health. Where do I want my life to go? I want to be a senior engineer. Or I want enough money to buy a car and go to NYC every year. I want to pay off school debt. Yeah, the job is the money, but it can be fun or at least important. It is work. Somehow I want energy to write too. And read. So more writing and reading and less TV. I want to read more too. Having a job will take energy, but I don’t need to commit myself to 10hour days every day. I hope to get interviews for the jobs I applied to today. I also should apply to more. Maybe tomorrow I won’t sleep through the afternoon and be able to work on more submissions. I could stay up later tonight because I haven’t been able to fall asleep very well. I am watching my energy and mood and healthy habits this month. October has been difficult in the past. I don’t know if it’s from burn out at work or just an affect of the season. I have been pretty happy in Spring and Summer this year. I think I don’t like the sun setting soon. Maybe I will take a drive tomorrow and look at leaves. This blog is all over the place but it’s fine. I wish I didn’t have to be so careful about with things like mood and energy. I do need more daily focus on diet and exercise. I’m hoping to get to the gym 5 days this week. Both today and yesterday were good runs. Tomorrow I’m going for a speed work out. Twins won their wildcard game to progress in the playoffs. Watching the news now. But the gym is very important to me. I need to keep the habit building weekly and daily. I am excited about making progress with running. Longer durations and more mileage and hopefully higher speed. I will stretch tonight. I’ve been feeling sore today. I used a couple weight machines in addition to my treadmill workout. Not all the machines, I was not feeling the weights today. I have a few goals longer term, but I should think about shorter term goals. I did hit a distance target about a week ago. Maybe I should try to tack on half a mile to that distance. I need to think about what to do for easy run. I guess easy should just be easy, and push on the hard efforts, like speed work and long runs.

[sneek-m]

Dreaming Fifteen: The 10 Best of S/mileage

The best retrospective for S/mileage is actually written by one of its former members. “The short skirt I took off before I even knew it, and the short hair that drastically changed my look / it’s now a remote past,” the group’s Ayaka Wada reminisces in her graduation single “Yume Mita Fifteen,” the lyrics penned by another former member Kanon Fukuda. A lyrical nod to the early phases of the group, these adolescent details get a look back with the same fondness from Wada as though she’s browsing through a book of her awkward baby photos: she understands these moments may have been formative for her, but thank goodness it’s all behind her now. 

But Wada really did that, so hopefully the future generation won’t have to go through that. S/mileage came up during an era of desperation not only for its home company Hello! Project but also the idol industry at large. The group debuted at the dawn of an age referred in retrospect as the Idol Warring Period — Idol Sengoku Jidai — with a resurgence of idol bringing a deep saturation of groups which inspired the roughest of competition. The short skirts were part of the many attention-seeking schemes — a strategy that would definitely not fly now. The less we bring up “Dot Bikini,” it might also be for the better.

While it adds context to the not-so-proud creative choices, understanding the era that S/mileage hail from also better makes sense of the narrative that informs much of their music. The idol-group peers that find kinship with them are ones like Shiritsu Ebisu Chuugaku or Sakura Gakuin, school-girl-themed acts developed in response to AKB48. Compared to those groups, the school grounds were more implied for the music and visuals of S/mileage: the lockers and classrooms set the stage for the video of their indie debut single as they dance in uniform. But their music still centers on the life of a teenage girl, one who’s ready to find out what love really means.

For better or worse, the adolescent point of view defined S/mileage from their peers in Hello! Project the most. The company’s flagship group Morning Musume had been lamenting their own teen-girl woes in what in retrospect would be known as their Platinum era yet they weren’t nearly as obsessed about going on dates as S/mileage had in a song like “Asu Wa Date Nanoni, Imasugu Koe Ga Kikitai.” As the Colorful era dawned for the former and their topics transitioned into more grand philosophies about self-improvement, the latter stayed grounded in their everyday spaces while navigating their own in-between of youth and adulthood.

My choice for S/mileage’s number-one is fittingly their major-label debut as it introduces the themes, narrative and the age bracket that would inform the songs thereafter. The B-sides and minor singles would expand the school-centered world introduced by “Yume Miru Fifteen”; “Onaji Jikyuu De Hataraku Tomodachi No Bijin Mama” is one of the best that precisely add to their teen-girl universe. Their later minor-key ballads deal with the push and pull of being no longer a 15-year-old girl but not yet a woman. Their latter years had them trying to convince the world they’re no longer young nor innocent, and so it was inevitable they’d shed the name and become Angerme, where talks of age and experience were set aside for reinforcing values and attitudes. With their legacy so steeped in adolescence, it’s only fitting, then, that the group’s best retrospective places their best song in the past tense.

Here's my top 10 songs by S/mileage.

"Yume Miru Fifteen" (2010)

"Samuine." (2012)

"Mystery Night!!" (2014)

"Sukichan" (2009)

"Amanojaku" (2009)

"Watashi, Choito Kawaii Urabancho" (2012)

"Sukiyo, Junjo Hankoki" (2012)

"Otona No Tochuu" (2013)

"Uchoten Love" (2011)

"Eighteen Emotion" (2014)

[outhouse-cartoons]

Here’s Indy and Marion from last night’s stream!

“It ain’t the years, honey.  It’s the mileage.”

Follow me on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/outhousecartoons

[morningrainmusic]

Peak Indie Rock: 2004

A Google search for “best indie rock albums ever” produces some of the following results, sourced from across the web: Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights (2002) Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted (1992) Pixies - Surfer Rosa (1988) Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West (1997) The Strokes - Is This It (2001) Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997) There are 42 more listed, most of them from the 90s. The 1990s was without a doubt the most important period for indie rock and the decade produced some of the best indie albums of all time. But for this exercise, determining which five year period had the MOST great indie rock albums, I have identified a clear winner in 2004-2009. This is of course entirely subjective. Had I been born in 1981 and not 1991, I would most likely be writing about the titans of 90s rock, all the bands immortalized by documentaries like 1991: The Year Punk Broke. The youngest Boomers and elder Gen Xers will likely cite the mid to late 80s as indie rock’s most fruitful period as they shove a copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life in your face, and they’d be right to. It would be foolish and disrespectful to ignore the seismic impact of these artists, who essentially founded the genre. Artistically and commercially, there is a sacred lineage—without The Velvet Underground there is no Pixies, without the Pixies there is no Nirvana, without Nirvana there is no Hoobastank. Joking aside it’s hard to imagine “The Reason” nearly topping the charts (it hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100) without Nevermind and how it transformed the music landscape. Point being, your mileage may vary with this list and the selected time period itself. But there is definitely a compelling case to be made for this admittedly, very specific question of “Which 5 years was the best run for indie rock albums?” In an article for Vulture, Larry Fitzmaurice attempted to define indie music in the 2010s, and provided a nice primer on how the early 2000s “garage rock revival” created fertile ground for the rise of great, and increasingly genre-blending indie rock bands. Into the 2010s and today, “indie rock” has become less of a cultural focus, replaced by simply “indie music,” a catchall that includes a much more diverse and wide-ranging set of artists, sounds, and styles (which is a good thing). If The O.C. was airing today, concerts at the Bait Shop might feature artists like Snail Mail, Young Fathers, and Arlo Parks rather than The Walkmen, The Killers, and Modest Mouse. But in the 2000s indie rock was king.

Before jumping into the list, here are some completely arbitrary “ground rules” I created. First, one album per artist. This made for some tough choices, as bands like Spoon, Death Cab for Cutie, and TV on the Radio put out multiple great records between 2004-2009. Second rule—indie ROCK only, meaning electro-leaning groups like Cut Copy, The Knife, Crystal Castles, and Junior Boys as well as indie-adjacent hip hop artists like M.I.A. and Madvillain are not featured. And that’s it! Without further ado, let’s go back in time to 2004:

Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen February 2, 2004 / Record Collection The Walkmen has one of the best and most distinct vocalists of the 21st century, six mostly very good albums, and strong critical support and yet they never reached the commercial heights of most of the other bands in this list. Initial passes of the band’s second album, Bows + Arrows, may reveal why this is the case. “The Rat” was an instant classic that probably overshadowed everything else here. While the rest of the record is undeniably solid indie rock, it lacks the immediacy of albums by similar wheelhouse groups like The National or Spoon. So why is Bows + Arrows here? Because slowly over time, it becomes increasingly clear to me that it is just as strong as the majority of those revered Meet Me in the Bathroom-era albums, even stronger than a lot. It is the drunken, impeccably produced, slightly downbeat and melancholy cousin to The Strokes’ debut. All these years later, it’s time the culture move on from “is this it” and start asking “What’s in it for me?” Side note: Plenty of 20th anniversary pieces will be written about each of these albums in the coming months and years. Here’s one on Bows + Arrows for Stereogum. Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand February 9, 2004 / Domino Here’s an album I loved when it was released but have rarely revisited since my youth. In all honesty, I did not expect it to hold up. Boy was I wrong. This debut album by a Glasgow band with a ridiculous name is loaded with punchy dance-punk riffs and infectious melodies. There is of course the big inescapable hit “Take Me Out” which graced Playstation and Mitsubishi commercials and remains Franz Ferdinand’s calling card. But nearly everything else here is just as captivating. A joy to rediscover all these years later. Fun fact: Kanye West, who released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, liked Franz Ferdinand. He described their sound as “white crunk.” Source: Stereogum 20th anniversary piece.

Hot Fuss by The Killers June 7, 2004 / Island

I remember being twelve years old, listening to “Somebody Told Me” on a burnt CD in my childhood bedroom. A website called The Facebook had launched a few months prior, though I had no awareness of it. George W. Bush was on his reelection campaign vs John Kerry. The war in Iraq raged on. American teens and pre-teens were a couple months away from being inundated with Napoleon Dynamite quotes. And here, this captivating song about “a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend,” replete with strange (to my young ears at least) synthesizer flourishes came pumping out of my plastic stereo, a karaoke machine from some Christmas past that had been coopted for the sole function of playing burnt CDs in my room. Before this devolves into an exercise in nostalgia or some over-the-top mythologizing of The Killers’ debut, I should acknowledge something: Hot Fuss is an absurdly front-loaded album. Tracks 1-5 are good (“Smile Like You Mean It”) to exceptionally great (“Jenny Was a Friend of Mine,” “Mr. Brightside,” “Somebody Told Me,” “All These Things That I’ve Done”). Tracks 6-11 are a wash of plodding, forgettable, and half-decent tunes. Following the explosive first five songs, one of which (“Brightside”) has become something of a millennial folk anthem, puts the second half at a big disadvantage. But the power and impact of the hits cannot be understated. Bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had already gotten the ball rolling in vanquishing nu-metal, culturally if not commercially. The Killers and Hot Fuss however, were the final nail in the coffin, possibly the closest thing to actual “saviors of rock” in the 21st century. And yes, Hot Fuss was released on a major label, Island, but in sound, aesthetic, and approach the early Killers were very much an indie band. You hear about as much New Order on the album as you do U2. Guitarist Dave Keuning recorded some of his parts from his Las Vegas apartment. There’s a hipster-maligning bonus track called “Glamorous Indie Rock & Roll,” which is underrated. This is an indie rock album.

A Ghost is Born by Wilco June 22, 2004 / Nonesuch

At the time of its release Pitchfork’s Rob Mitchum called A Ghost Is Born “wildly uneven” and “less cohesive than any other Wilco album.” Dean of American rock critics Robert Christgau called it “a privileged self-indulgence.” I call it Wilco’s second best and quite possibly most interesting album. My favorite, as you may have guessed, is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the high watermark for 2000s indie art rock, label disputes, and black and white making-of documentary filmmaking. How to follow up such a gargantuan artistic achievement? Well they brought back Jim O’Rourke, who mixed Foxtrot, to produce and cranked out some slow-burners punctuated by skronky Television-influenced guitar solos. For good measure, Jeff Tweedy and co threw in a few sweet, melodic tunes like “Hummingbird” and “The Late Greats” that show off some of that AM radio pop finesse from Summerteeth. This might have created some musical whiplash on initial listens, sure, but “wildly uneven,” this album is not. There’s a reason all of these songs (with the exception of “Less Than You Think”) are beloved by Wilco diehards and casual fans alike. Each one either rips or quietly wriggles its way into your subconscious and stays there for life.

More Adventurous by Rilo Kiley August 17, 2004 / Brute/Beaute Rio Kiley’s Jenny Lewis is a master of one-liners and quietly devastating character portraits, all neatly wrapped in shimmering indie pop—the candy-covered coating to a not-so-secretly wounded interior. She’s also adept at writing clever, poppy love songs that you end up humming to yourself for weeks. Both are here on More Adventurous, a high point in Rilo Kiley’s discography. Further reading: NPR | Rilo Kiley And The Alt-Pop Force Of More Adventurous

Rubber Factory by The Black Keys September 7, 2004 / Fat Possum

Rubber Factory was in fact recorded in a rubber factory. Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) rented out the second floor of a long closed General Tire factory that Carney described as "not really ideal in any way.” He continued, “It's too far away. It's on the second story. It's hot as hell. You can't open the windows. The acoustics are horrible." The mixing console they used was purchased on eBay and frequently malfunctioned. They recorded on recycled tape from their label Fat Possum. When they were finished, they left the damned machine behind and six years later the building was demolished, very possibly with the console still inside. These are the kinds of details from which rock legends are born. Before the music of The Black Keys was ubiquitous on rock radio and in car commercials, the band was just a couple of dudes in Akron, Ohio playing unpolished blues rock tunes in Carney’s basement, and then amongst the rubber. It was on this album, not their 2010 commercial breakthrough Brothers as some might have you believe, that they first proved they could craft a cohesive and consistently excellent record.

Funeral by Arcade Fire September 14, 2004 / Merge

So much ink has been spilled about Funeral, nearly all of it laudatory, it’s hard to know what’s left to say or where to begin. When thinking about 2000s indie music this, for many, is the album that comes to mind. Funeral was a game-changer. Which is kind of amazing, considering there is nothing cool about Arcade Fire. They wore ties and vests and dresses. They favored elaborate instrumentation and big earnest shouting over streamlined guitars and detached/passive/brooding frontman singing. They sing about their parents. There are about nine people in the band, and one of them plays an accordion. Arcade Fire and Funeral had something far more powerful than the cool factor though. They had resonant, powerful, life-affirming, transportive music. And basically overnight, the next 10+ years of indie rock was set on a new course that, for better or worse, included the rise of groups like Of Monsters and Men, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Florence + The Machine, Mumford & Sons, and The Lumineers. Fans still celebrate songs like “Wake Up” and “Rebellion (Lies)” with an almost religious fervor in part because they cut right past the bullshit posturing of so much rock music and go straight to the heart. The album is an elegy, recorded in the aftermath of several deaths in band members’ families. But it’s also a reflection on how disillusioned many young people felt at the turn of the century. Look no further than the lyrics Win Butler sings on “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)”: Ice has covered up my parents’ hands Don’t have any dreams, don’t have any plans Growing up in some strange storm Nobody’s cold, nobody’s warm The band has made more great albums in the 20 years since Funeral (The Suburbs is probably their best), but none have had the same impact as their debut. They’ve also been plagued by sexual assault allegations against Butler in recent years, which certainly taints the music a bit and will negatively impact Arcade Fire’s legacy. Still, Funeral changed indie rock forever and remains an undeniable classic. Shake the Sheets by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists October 19, 2004 / Lookout!

There’s this clip of Ted Leo performing “Me and Mia” in 2007 on MTV’s 24-hour Human Giant takeover. If you are under the age of 25 that sentence is likely completely unintelligible. But anyways, about a minute into the performance Leo’s amp goes out and, like the seasoned pro that he is, he asks someone to bang a pedal to revive it, still singing along to the melody on live television. It is fixed, and Leo finishes the song. I am likely reading way too much into this small moment, but I see it as an allegory for Ted Leo’s entire career. Ted Leo is a punk rock lifer and devotee of power pop, classic rock, and politically-charged songwriting. Despite widespread critical acclaim, years of breakneck touring, and a collaboration with Aimee Mann, Leo’s music still feels like a well-kept secret. You may not know his work, but someone you know does and that person is likely a diehard fan. The fact that Leo jumped around five record labels for seven studio albums (plus one he crowd-funded and released himself, 2017’s The Hanged-Man) is astonishing, as every record is good to great. So to me, that MTV clip represents Leo as the steadfast survivor, able to adapt to a fickle, constantly changing, in many ways broken industry and put forth exactly the kind of art he wants to in spite of it. Shake the Sheets is one of the great albums. Though not as widely beloved as The Tyranny of Distance (2001) or Hearts of Oak (2003), Sheets finds Leo firing on all the familiar cylinders and asking some urgent questions that are just as relevant today as they were 20 plus years ago. On Oak, it was “where have all the rude boys gone?” On Sheets, it’s “when will we find a chord as resonant as to shake the sheets and make us move?” Leo believes in the power of punk rock to inspire individuals to organize to bring about positive change, and he’s one of the few modern voices who can thread a politically incisive lyric into his songwriting without coming off as preachy. Look no further than “Bleeding Powers,” an evergreen protest song, and one catchy enough to remain stuck in my head for the better part of the past year: And you still see people waiting for the next excuse for war And the road leads somewhere, but it's not yet to your door

[mindctrlaltdel]

Random Reviews: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Good enough. Maybe I’m being nice. Maybe it’s the years AND the mileage. 

Sure, Dial D for Destiny loses steam before the wacky ending (that I really enjoyed because it’s the 2023 version of playing Civilization 2 on the family Macintosh).

That said, I especially liked the opening. Normally, I hate de-aging CGI, but if you watched this on grainy VHS after the first three Jones movies, you’d hardly notice the difference. Hardly. Yes, de-aging is still weird, but it looks about as good here as any time they photoshop Robert Downey Jr.’s head onto a CGI Iron-Man body.

There were rumors that Mangold and company had trouble cracking the ending. It shows. Apparently, they filmed a bunch of alternate climaxes and that’s all evident in the finished product. Going in, I’d heard the last 30 minutes were weird and wild. 

As I watched the movie I kept asking myself, “how wacky can this possibly get?” 

Not wacky enough. 

At one point, I theorized that Mads would get the Dial and activate it. Then, Indy would wake up in an alternate 1969 where the Nazis won WW2, and he’d have to find a way to undo this Man in the High Castle scenario in the final 15 minutes of movie time. 

Then they ended up in ancient times, and I assumed the twist was gonna be: that robed wise man ISN’T really Archimedes. INDY is Archimedes. And the corpse-with-the-watch-that-they-found-in-that-tomb-ten-minutes-ago was Indy himself. Indiana Jones robs his OWN grave. How poetic! It RHYMES!

***1/2

[popculturebuffet]

It's Not The Years It's the Mileage: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Welcome back folks to "It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage", my long look at the Indiana Jones Franchise. And we've come, a bit belatedly thanks to my recent move throwing my schedule out of wack, to our penultimate chapter, what was until just a week ago the final film in the franchise.. and the one most fans like to ignore when their not shaking their fists at it..

So going into this one was a bit loaded to say the least. I thankfully still had mostly fresh eyes: i remembered this one a bit better thanks to having seen it theatrically with my dad and his friend Don, a really neat guy who really loved star wars and who we also saw the Star Wars Prequels with. As a teen.. I thought it was eh, but I also wasn't that invested in the franchise. So the question is as an adult who now genuinely loves this franchise after two great movies and a mess so far, how will Crystal Skull hit me now? The answer, as always is under the cut.

Saucer Men from Mars

Naturally Indy's 4 starts in the 90's. Last Crusade really felt like the end of the road: The Indy films were now a trilogy, Speilberg wanted to move on, and while Harrison Ford wasn't convinced that more coudln't happen, he also saw the writing on the wall. George Lucas though WANTED to keep it going and during the early 90's tried to convince both men to do a film: Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars

You know I thought Indiana Jones and the Monkey King was going to be the most bonkers draft to a potetial indy film I heard of on this journey. Given it involved human chess, cyborg nazis, and Sun Wukong, I had every reason to. But friends thanks to this article at den of geek , I can tell you.. saucer men is somehow WEIRDER.

So the film follows Indy as he tries to marry someone we just meet, has a wedding with every prevoius supporting character present including both of his exes, gets left at the alter , and then has drinks with Marion and Willie. Oh and it turns out his bride to be was called away to investigate A FLYING SAUCER.

Yeah... the film has Indy having to solve an ancient puzzle before invading aliens torch the earth. Oh and he also has to deal with cold war paranoia, the russians, and DEATH RAYS THAT MELT PLANES OUT OF THE SKY. Did.. did professor farnsworth write this? It also all apparently takes place in one small town which fits the astethic Lucas was going for but REALLY dosen't fit indy at all. indy is about globetrotting.. this is just

Also Indy gets abducted in a drive in. Yeah this film really sounds more like an invasion film that Lucas just plopped indy into than an actual indy film.

SHOCKINGLY Speilberg wanted nothing to do with this: After doing Schinlders List he decided he was done with Blockbusters for a while, only returning to them for Minority Report and ironically, War of the Worlds, but both had a thinky sci fi undercurrent where as this is just stuff blowing up. As for harrison ford

So Lucas instead focused on the star wars prequels, and the matter was tabled for a while, though he kept having the film rewrote each time, piece by piece replacing itself. Eventually Speilberg and Ford wer ein just the right position Lucas needed...

And the film shockingly went off without a ton of hitches despite a near endless script cycle. a few cast subtstitions, some extra cgi and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull happened pretty easily.

And this might come as a shock given it's modern presentation, it certainly did to me.. but the film was WELL recevied at the time. Many a critic, including Roger Ebert, loved it, and it made money hand over fist. Fan response at it's most vitrolic was a resounding..

Not liking the hoakiness but not really getting the hate the star wars prequels got till later.

So the question is where do I fall in this debate? Is it okay or a true disaster? One that salted the earth so the franchise would never grow again?

Yeah honestly Crystal Skull is just.. mediocre. It's not OFFENSIVELY bad, but it feels like two legends half assing it. So because of this film being uniquely half assed and having such a rep, i'm going to break it down into diffrent parts than usual: The three biggest complaints people have with the film, Then what I thought about it beyond those. Of Ancient Aliens, Nuked Fridges and Mutt Williams: So yeah when you tend to hear complaints about the film, the three things that get brought up the most are the nuking of the fridge, using aliens, and Mutt Williams. So i'm going to go ahead and get out front of these. Nuking the Fridge: For those not as familiar, which I suspect is almost none of you but humor me, early in the film while fighting the russians, Indy accidently ends up in a nuclear test site and hides in a lead lined fridge to survivied, getting blown clean. He should be dead but isn't. And I... love this sequence. Is indy surviving this implausable? Entirely. Should he have been blown clear for this to at all work? Fuck no. But is it a beautifully shot, tense and fun sequence? Absolutely. The reveal of the manequins got me as a teen and as an adult, knowing the town was fake, I spoted how .. artifical it looked and loved the suspense as I waited for Indy to find out and even knowing how he'd survive this, the tension is awesome. IT's a classic indy ploy. And look this is a series where Shiva killed one antagonist and the Judeo Christian god killed the rest and let a knight live forever. It's okay to have a small bit of bollocks and frankly Indy's survived stuff that should kill him anyway, this is just the first time it was made painfully obvious he's indy-structable. I get not liking it, it is over the top.. but I fucking love it. The Aliens are more of a mixed bag. Now the alien itself we see.. is awesome: the way it arrives by having the skulls assembled with it slowly shifting into the statues, it's intimidating apperance, and the way it fries the big bad's brain in the same way she tortured Indy earlier, a look of contempt on it's face as if to say "You wanted our knowledge CHOKE ON IT". I also really don't have an issue WITH aliens being involved. Is it a tad more sci fi than fantasy? Yup. But honestly pulp adventure is the kind of genre you can take anywhere. While Scrooge McDuck mostly found lost cities he did visit the moon, aliens, and fantasy creatures, and Lucas made the right call in having the aliens be extra dimensional instead: instead of a ship it's more of a teleporter. It being aliens in itself isn't the problem The problem.. is the execution. Looking back on previous indy macguffins and forward to Archemedies Dial, each one has a reason why it exists: The Arc was made to hold the commandments and has the power of god because it's construction was ordained by him and it was hidden because no one should have this power. THe stones were in a place of worship before being pilfiried, fitting for a dieties power. And the grail was hidden because it could ONLY be used in that spot, similar to how in the arthurian stories, which I looked up, the grail had to be kept near the fisher king to heal his father. Here the aliens skulls are spread world wide, beam information into people, and summon the aliens themselves because...

I don't need to know WHY the arc can melt nazis or the stones can shoot lightning, but I need to know WHY the crystal skulls are what they are. You could say "to get the temple back".. but then WHY did they leave it there? Why were they worshipped? I'm fine with going with the flow and filling in the cracks myself if the storys good enough.. but the mystery here just isn't. Lucas and Speilberg REALLY coast on the idea "aliens isn't that neat", without building up the intrigue from before. The exposition here is just boring. It's just indy talking, saying really nothing, instead of building up a compelling mystery as to WHY these things are here and what the skulls ultimately mean. IT's the films fatal flaw: I often don't care about this adventure beyond Indy and his family... because the story dosen't seem to care. It's scattered around the world because "Well that's what these pictures do" instead of for intresting and well thoguht out reasons. If you want a globetrotting adventure.. you have to have a reason to trot the globe otherwise you just make me wish for the next set peice and that's NOT what these films should be. The non set peice stuff is there to build character, build the mystery and give us a second to calm down. It's just.. boring. Even temple for all it's issue iwth it's downtime scenes, didn't make me wish to turn the film off.

Finally we have Mutt who again is a mixed bag... but mostly a good one. For the first half of the film.. Mutt is actually a great character. He's a greaser sure, and the fact he says Daddy-O later physically hurts, but he's also shown as a troubled kid who has daddy issues, runs away from his problems and is passionate about what he does. He's indy himself, years younger, simply lacking his passion for discovery, somethign Mutt finds along the way allegedlys. And look.. as a person Shia Lebouf sucks. He truly sucks and he's an absuive monster. But I have to admit through gritted teeth he's a good actor, with Transformers being more bad direction and a script that called for him to SCREAM LOUDLY AT THINGS HAPPENING.. ALL THE THINGS ALL THE SCREAMING. He was a good choice for the part and plays off ford well. Sure the Tarzan thing was stupid, and Shia LeBouf was RIGHT to call it stupid no matter what Speilberg thought. No really Stephen took it personally and said "There's a time to speak and there's a time to shut up and eat"

Dude, oscar award winning film changing dude... sometimes ... it's okay to say something in a film you were in was bad TWO YEARS after it came out. Because it was. You admitted Temple of Doom was bad and should feel bad. How did this bother you?

Mutt isn't a terrible character the issue is more the film.. forgets to really finish his arc. He's mad at indy when he finds out even though he really.. shoudln't be? Indy had no idea he existed? , but this.. never gets resolved. He just accepts it because the movies over, picks up his hat and thankfully never puts it on. Mutt COULD have worked.. but the film just forgets to give a shit about him once his mom shows up and aliens are a comin. He's sadly wasted potetial and luckily the next film finds a way to make up for it with a whole new sidekick reminding indy of his past mistakes. Speaking of character

A Weakness of Character

In my Temple of Doom review I pointed out how it's lack of character arc was one of it's biggest weaknesses: By resetting indy to where he was before raiders, there was no where to really take him. Crystal Skull has the oppositie problem: Now set a few decades later, with an older Indy in a world he dosen't understand the film keeps him ... largely the same. We get some intresting seeds of a man out of time early on: The Goverment, originally indy's steadfast allies, are now in full red scare mode and instantly question Indy for simply having been friends with a traitor to the soviets without considering Indy didn't know, nearly costing him is job. He served in the army, worked hard, did all the things he thought were right.. and now he's getting spat on for stuff not his fault. So what does the film do with this?

Yeah after our hero leaves on his quest with Mutt and gets trailed by the KGB.. NOTHING comes of this. It has no impact on the plot. And that's the real issue... the movie brings up intresting character arcs for Indy and dosen't pay them off in any meaningful way. We get the knowledge he left Marion at the alter and has commitment issues.. and he uh marries her at the end and their married all the way to dial of destiny. That's it. He clamps down hard on wanting Mutt to go back to college and trying to be a dad.. and er.. he's a dad now I guess? The film starts up intresting ideas but can't finish a goddamn one. IT's what holds the film back: it STARTS really strong but then falls apart. Marion at least is awesome as ever and bringing her back was a top notch choice. Karen Allen is as good as ever, and feels like she's still fleshing Marion out and she plays off Indy and Mutt perfectly. My only regret is she really.. dosen't have much to do in the plot. She's held hostage, gets free, teams up with the rest of the heroes and.. really dosen't add anything. It's a far fall from last time. And that's the REAL problem with the crystal skull. Don't get me wrong, I get why the big three issues I tackled are such a big deal... but this is the subtle death that kills the film. Lucas and Speilberg and writer David Koepp, who wrote freaking Spider-Man and thus should knwo better, just didn't care to finish anything.

It's more apparent in the villians. Kate Blanchett is an awesome actress, as much as I didn't like Tar she does a phenominal job there and was amazing fun as Hela in Thor Ragnarok, but all she's given to be as Irina Spalko is a very sterotpical cold war russian bad guy. There's not substance to her and unlike with Toht there isn't any.. cold looming menace. It was much more personal with the Nazis and I fully respect Speilberg, after portraying them at their deadliest seriousness in schindlers list, for not using them again. This is personal to him for damn obvious reasons. But it was shown with Molla Ram he could make an intimdating villian outside the nazis. Here it's just a cartoon caracture. Irinia comes off like a bad 60's era iron man villian wanting to CRUSH AMERICA AND THE CAPTALISTS instead of the very real dread of a nation ran by dogma and under an unflinching uncaring leader, the stuff we deal with NOW with Russia as they continue to invade an inncoent country.

There's also Mac, Indy's friend who just loves money... and that's it. That's his character. He loves money and sold out to the reds to get it. He's a complete waste of breath and space and should've died int he prologue. I do not care fo rhim. There's also Ox. While John Rhys Davies tries his best... he's just diet Henry Sr. And that's not hyperbole: they wanted him to replace connery, he refused so we're just given this guy we're told is important who mostly goes around half brain dead till he gets his mind back at the end. Crystal Skull.. just has weak character. There was no care or depth put in. Even Thot as horrbile as he is had the thought of being a simple for just how purely monsterous the Nazi's were. Ther'es juts NOTHING here and it makes the film a slog. If your not going to finish any arc or give me a bad guy to actually want see taken down, why do I care?

Odds and Ends: So yeah ONCE AGAIN an Indy film does a racisim. You'd think after last Crusade reduced it to Sallah, who I begrudgingly accept at this point, they WOULDN'T go back to this well. You'd think 19 years later and after they already turned down one idea for the third Indy film for being too racist they wouldn't instead...

Yeah there's a weird martial arts cult of indegnious peoples depicted as savages. So .. THAT happened and i'm less lenient. Again they had 19 YEARS to learn this shit wasn't okay. Granted anyone familiar with episode 1 can tell Lucas really had learned nothing. But given Speilberg had done MULTIPLE films heavily tackling prejudice, slavery, and genocide at this point, you'd THINK he'd know better. YOU'D THINK. YOU'D. THINK. It's not as in your face as Temple but it's still very much beneath them. I have nothing but contempt for this choice and for them going with it and learning NOTHING about being culturally senstive after 19 years.

There's also a lot of CGI in this film. It wasn't intended and the practical effects, as before are good.. but the CGI here has aged like mayo topped with a fresh egg and dumped on the sidewalk and left in the hot unforgiving sun for 19 years. The Jungle Chase is paticuarlly bad: while they coudln't find a clear cut jungle to use, they'd of been better off.. doing somethign else. The actual stuntwork is good.

The Motorcycle Set piece is great and should feel great. And overall the goofy tone of the film is one I don't mind: I don't mind it being ab it more over the top outside of it's racist bullshit, and it's more over the top moments remind me of the good in temple of doom and help catapult me out of the dry rest of the film.

So overall.. Crystal Skull.. is

It has the potetial to be a good film, but dosen't care to actually use it. It's not a GOOD film.. but it's also just not bad enough for me to truly hate it. The good parts help keep it above that as does Karen Allen. It's a bad indiana jones film and a very bleh adventure film.. but it's just not this "RUINED THE FRANCHISE FOREVER" .. thing people desribe it as. If it was to you, I totally get it and could see that, but for me it's just a mediocre disapointing sequel. I've had plenty of those and plenty of worse disapointments sequel wise. Maybe the fact we got a much better one makes it impossible for me to really care. I deeply love indy now, I love this franchise and this is a bloch.. but it dosen't erase the two great films before this or the highs temple had amid the extreme lows. And with the power of time and nostalgia.. it didn't stop someone else from taking one last crack at it. Next Time: We put this retrospective in a box to be examined by Top Men as I look at the final Indiana Jones film, which is still in theaters: Dial of Destiny. Is it good, bad, mediocre? find out with me next time.

[eldritchmochi]

Letter ask: the word PHANTOM

jesus christ mina youre going to kill me lmao

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

HMMM i have a couple weird ones, because im me, but i think the weirdest would be the one where i just slap ashton into the whole situation i have going on with my job where they get hired to be reception (somehow??? he's baffled too honestly) and then ends up taking over bookkeeping because he has some level of prior experience due to all the temping hes done while trying to get out of manual labor work to save their increasingly fucked up body at least a little, and then revolves around him navigating getting his health under control and the fact that hes like... financially stable and almost well off???? for the first time in their entire life, with added bonus of the IT guy they deal with most for getting all the stuff set up to do bookkeeping is fucking cute as hell and they keep running into each other at the gym and then maybe something about taking care of both fcg and milo (even tho milo hates it) because finally ashton has money to meaningfully contribute to the well being of his friends. i will eventually write it because i think it'd be fun to put ashton into Situations in an entirely benign office setting when he's defintely not the sort youd think to be there, especially not in some sort of management situation, i just haven't figured out the rest of the cast lmao

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

broadly, it really depends. i am all over the map with where inspo comes from and just because i find inspo in one particular piece of media does not mean i'll latch onto something in the same vein even if you'd expect me to. even beyond format or indie vs mainstream, i'm wildly unpredictable when it comes to things like how fleshed out the characters i claim as mine are in source material and like even the kind of characters i find inspo in a lot of the time. like, ive written (but not finished) fic for crime procedurals so like...... my mileage certainly varies lmao

probably the trends are like: indie media or cult classics, things with found family, and things with characters who either have a solid base of unique traits to extrapoliate into a good personality or characters that are very well fleshed out and very unique

A N T answered here!!

O answered here!! but i'll answer it again because its fun lmao

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

this one is very much on repeat when i work on the 30k+ ashrym character exploration pwp i have been writing off and on for like 10 months lmao

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

okay so like, cherry was absolutely BAFFLED by my fmk answer for cr between my Big Three blorbos here because its absolutely fuck caleb, marry ashton, kill essek

BUT HEAR ME OUT so like ashton right?? we're both abrasive assholes who have a lot of things in common (brawling, punk diy, not touching people) so you'd think we'd butt heads a lot but i can absolutely see them being the sort to plainly state if i'm being annoying and how, and i also see him being the sort to respond well to the same. i think we'd vibe well because we just kinda get a lot of the bullshit we each go through and also have a similar enough way of communicating frustrations that there wouldn't really be hard feelings from frustrations. 10/10 good buddy, roommate, or husband material in my books

essek is the exact opposite. i would punch that wizard in the face like IMMEDIATELY lmao

caleb physically is aggressively my type (which is why i write so much porn from essek's pov lmao) but he would frustrate the hell out of me irl with the way he manages his trauma so id divorce him in like a year BUT the dick would be bomb so fwb but more benefits and less friends because i do not want to be someone's therapist i have been there

anyway.

there are several other letters in this ask game u can ask me bles it is very fun