#Pretty intense industrial violence

[whatisbirds]

Limits of an Invitation

After a near-fatal shop accident, Eliza Danielson is ripped from death's maw by her theater's carpentry head. In exchange for a swift recovery she forges a bond that swiftly entangles her with the precarious politics of her university's unlife scene. Anatol Stamatin, a builder of many mediums, is just happy to have a sympathetic ear. After all, the nights stretch long and lonely when fasting to break a vaulderie spanning centuries.

Heyhowdy! So I've been working on this fic based on a Tzim ancilla PC of mine since about January, and it's finally polished up enough for me to feel comfortable publishing it! First chapter can be read on Ao3 here: Mrs. Danielson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Lathe Aiming for a bi-weekly publishing schedule (Every Thursday/Friday) and as it stands it should be somewhere between 8 - 10 chapters long. (For folks who prefer to stick to the blog, the chapter is posted below the cutoff)

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It had been a slow night in the shop. It always got dead at the end of the semester, students preoccupied with wrapping up finals and productions going dark for the winter gap between fall and spring terms. Oftentimes Eliza would find herself alone at her paint station, her footfalls reverberating through the whole of the loading dock whenever she had to grab whatever scrap or tool her project called for next. As lonely as it was, the insectile skittering of her brush echoing back to her provided a company that her studio apartment lacked.

But tonight she had not resigned herself to the paint rack. Earlier in the evening, while fetching fresh water to clean out her brushes, she noticed the shop manager’s office was not only unlocked, but empty. In plain view, hanging off an uneven line of nails, were the keys to every piece of equipment currently locked in the machinery cage. 

Better to ask forgiveness than permission, her mother would always say.

Eliza had hoped that, wherever Mr. Stamatin had fucked off to, it’d be for more than five minutes. Upon checking, she spotted his Impala was parked in the same far corner it always was, the mirror opposite of her baby blue Fortwo nestled next to the dock entrance. Her assumption had been he was in the building, but tied up in a faculty meeting or some other administrative business. Whatever it was, she had hoped to seize this window and be done before he returned.

But she had forgotten a key part of the equation–her rotten ass luck.

The second the cage unlocked, she might as well have tripped an alarm because she found herself in his long shadow in no time.

“Ms. Danielson?”

She slipped the keys into her tote as she turned to face him, “Oh, hey Mr. Stamatin! I didn’t know you were still in today.”

“I’m always ‘in’ .” Mr. Stamatin stood a full head taller than Eliza, as well as the vast majority of the students. A fact that left every interaction with him, no matter how mild, with the distinct sense of being lectured by a parent. “I will ask again– what is it that you are doing ‘ in’ the cage, Ms. Danielson?”

 “I, uh, was just gonna fire up the lathe for an end table I’m working on.”

“You are aware you need to check keys through me, are you not?”

“I am aware.” Eliza chewed the inside of her cheek as her gaze drifted past him and to the cage door behind him. Between that and the closed shop doors, she had no idea how he had managed to sneak up on her. Doing her best to bite back a frustrated frown, she looked back up to him. “I was in a rush and you weren’t in the office. I wasn’t sure when you were going to be back so I figured I’d go ahead and set up while I waited.”

There was no telling if he bought this little half-truth–she’d have better luck getting a read off one of the wood planks than Mr. Stamatin. “...I see. Well. I would be happy to assist now that I have returned.”

“Awesome!” She said, feeling the opposite. He propped the cage door open and helped her guide the heavy machine out of storage and to its designated spot.

As vague as it might be, there was a reason hardly anyone in the department fucked with the aloof shop manager. Every conversation with him was a struggle no matter what angle he was approached with. She assumed English wasn’t his first language with how often he’d clip his sentences down to the bare essentials–simple, direct and sharp. Though he clearly had enough of a grasp to understand what was said–she also doubted the university would hire someone who wasn’t at least partially fluent. Regardless, he left many a freshman ego wounded with nothing more than a single word or observation… and his curtness only worsened with the grads.

You could not design a more intimidating Russian.

He held his hand out expectantly. “Keys.”

“Pardon?”

“The switch keys. You have them?”

She sighed as she reached into her bag and tossed them over. I’ll make copies another time. “Oh, right. Here ya go.”

“Thank you.” He turned the switch over and the indicator light blinked to life. A low electric thrum confirming the lathe was powered and ready to go. “Do you need lumber?”

“I got it covered, thanks.” She set her tote down and unloaded the four 2’2 pine boards poking out the corner of the bag. Their edges were beginning to splinter–they’d been knocking around the passenger seat of her car for a little too long–but a perfect fit for the drawer she already had built out. 

Mr. Stamatin’s brow furrowed. “...that is softwood.”

“Yeah. It’s cheap.” Eliza began loading one of the planks into the lathe. “Why?”

“Hardwood is better for turning. Also–forgive me–” He apologized before taking one of the planks, running a finger along the splintering edge, “You see this? This fray? Whatever you carve, will fray the same way. Your table will not last.”

“...it’s what I had around.” Eliza mumbled as she clamped the board down. “And it’s a gift for my mom, I’m not selling it or nothing. I don’t think she’ll mind if it gets a little worn. Actually I think she might prefer it that way.”

“I can cut you some maple.”

“...I mean. I already made the top. It’d look mis-matched.” Eliza’s frustration was beginning to peek through as a tight tenor underscoring her speech. “And I already have it loaded in. So–”

“No. Nonono. Eliza, I expected more from someone of your talent–this is shoddy. Especially for a gift.” Mr. Stamatin ‘tsked as he pulled the key from the power supply, cutting it.

“Uh. Thank you?” This was the first time she’d heard anything resembling praise from him–not just directed at her, but at anyone, period. Backhanded? Yes. Flattering? Also yes.

“You are welcome.” He pocketed the key. “I will fetch the maple. Be right back.”

He disappeared around the corner into the loading dock, and Eliza sat down on a nearby stool with a sigh. Huh. This was… weird. Sure she had only been in the program for about a year and a half, but she felt like she had at least a general sense of who Mr. Stamatin was. She’d met his type time and time again in undergrad– reserved, a harsh perfectionist. Prone to hyperfixation so intense it turns his projects inside out. He had spoken to her maybe once… twice unprompted over the two and a half months she worked with him on that Endgame set? Hell, she didn’t even know his first name. He never shared it and on the university website only listed him as “A. Stamatin”. 

But now suddenly he’s playing at being her mentor? Fuck off.

She checked her phone. 

11:45. December 23rd, 2014.

Two missed calls from “Maw”.

Three new texts from “Maw”.

Eliza’s heart remained firmly sunk into her gut as she pocketed her phone; she was almost relieved when Mr. Stamatin returned. He handed her four 2’2 planks and the lathe key. “There. Hardwood makes for better furniture. Pine is better suited for sets.”

“...Thanks.” Eliza got up and began to load the first leg into the lathe “So… you’re staying in town for Christmas?”

Mr. Stamatin took her spot on the stool, watching over her shoulder as she powered up the lathe. “I am. Yourself?”

“My mom lives in Des Moines. So, at this point, yeah. No point in leaving now.” She shrugged as she finished fastening the plank into the machine. “You got family anywhere?”

“We’re all local.”

Eliza scoffed. The man had an accent thicker than pine tar. “You’re kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” He did not. 

Eliza sized him up for a beat, frown weighing the corner of her mouth. It was only now that she really got a good look at him, and noticed that… he kind of looked like shit. His skin was sickly pale, dark circles well defined below his eyes. If he told her he had not slept in a week, she’d believe him. However there was nothing in his stature that implied impairment, his posture was straight and his hands steady. Maybe it was just the shop lights? “You’re local?”

“Not local- local. I did not grow up here…” He trailed off, his mind elsewhere. “It’s a long story. What matters is this is where they’ve settled. Now a question in kind: how long have you been working as a carpenter?”

Eliza shrugged as she watched the lathe gain momentum. “Four years professionally, eight years if you count the work I did in undergrad.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Oh boy, do I.”

Mr. Stamatin snorted, “Passionate.”

“It’s almost midnight on christmas eve, I’m tired. I don’t really have the bandwidth for this, I just want to get it over with.” Eliza took a step back as she scrolled through the measurements she sketched out on her notes app. “Sorry. You’re making small talk. I’m being an asshole.”

“You are. But I get it.” Mr. Stamatin paused again, a consideration. “I’m playing teacher while you’re clearly crafting an apology.”

“An apology?”

“It’s christmas eve. You’re hundreds of miles from home. Your phone’s been buzzing in your pocket and you barely bother to check. Trying to not think of your mother, sitting alone in the dark this holiday?” 

Eliza turned to face him, taken aback. “How old are you?”

“Thirty.” The number hit the ground between them with a thud, utterly detached. 

“You talk like my grandpa.”

Mr. Stamatin leaned back in his stool, clearly thinking he struck a vein. “Does he chastise you for ignoring family calls?”

“You’ve barely spoken to me since I started grad school despite us sharing space and equipment six evenings a week for over a year. You have not earned the mileage to be this fucking petty with me, I don’t care if I stepped on your toes or whatever by taking the keys.” She turned away from him and pocketed her phone, stepping back to the lathe. “You don’t get to talk to me like I’m five.”

The stool scraped across the concrete as he stood abruptly, “Eliza–”

“First name basis already? When it’s only been a year and a half? You’re rushing me, Mr. Stamatin–” Eliza didn’t get to complete that thought. She had been reaching over the lathe–first mistake. She had left the spindle gouge on the table and had went to grab it when suddenly her sleeve–and her arm–was yanked down into the headstock spindle. She should have taken off her sweater, but it was frigid in the shop so she hadn’t. That was her second and far more fatal mistake.

She heard her bones snap before she felt it.

Her right hand folded, twisted and tore in a wash of undefined, white-hot pain. Pain that screamed up her arm almost as fast as the limb itself was fed into the machine’s momentum. Instead of the sawdust and cold concrete of the shop she swore she smelled the feet-deep peet of prairie, the putrid-sweet smell of sweat and the salt-licking bees it attracted. Woodrot and moss, earthen morels and creek-dampened locust-tree shade.

Eliza’s short life overwhelmed her–the final buffer before the churning force of multiple tonnes subsumed her.

But it never did.

What felt like a molten rod drove beneath her shoulder blade and with another, definitive CRACK she was no longer being pulled into the lathe but away. She felt something– a hand? Who’s hand? --pressing and pulling where the agony had localized in her shoulder socket as she felt her back press up against another body before she was spun around. 

“Look at me.”

Eliza’s gaze drifted, her vision swimming. A vacant, distant part of her recognized the various landmarks of the shop–the bay door, the prop cubbies, the wall where the unused stage lights hung and the plastic tub of unsorted gobos languishing beneath them–but it was all stained. Tinted. She felt like she was looking through stained glass, into somewhere else, somewhere far off. Pain twinged through her torso as she felt the hands on her shoulders shake her.

“Look at me.”

Her reptile brain snapped to attention, her eyes snapping up to meet Mr. Stamatin’s. It was surreal, seeing any emotion there, especially the mix of terror and panic that kept his gray eyes wide and his cheeks colorless. He held a finger up between them, and her eyes tracked its movement without issue. “Eliza. You should sit.”

The lathe was still whirring in the background. It was only then that she registered what felt like warm rain pattering against the back of her neck. With her remaining hand, she reached back and dipped her fingers into the moisture, looking down to see blood smeared across her fingertips. Her blood. Her blood was still being sprayed out by the lathe.

Eliza opened her mouth to speak, but only bile came out. One violent retch shook her body as the acid stained the fronts of both of their shirts. The last thing she saw before knees gave out was a bit of knitted scrap unspun on the floor between them. 

The remains of her sweater sleeve, drenched in blood.

****

When Eliza came to, she was laid out across a cot.

Bleary-eyed, she squinted against a bright light of a surgical light haloing her. The hospital…? The smell of alcohol and disinfectant hung heavy in the air. A dull headache thrummed in time with her pulse as her gaze drifted to the IV taped to her arm, tube coiling dull crimson from the crook of her elbow to the transfusion bag. Further down her arm, a leather strap cuffed her wrist to the surgical bed–not that she was in any position to move her arm. Stare at it all she liked, she could not will it to move. Anything from twitching her finger to rolling her shoulder. Alarm as dull as the throbbing between her ears rolled over her as her mind reach out to the other–

A wash of blood drowned her senses. 

Whirring machinery.

Snapped bones. 

A scrap of sweater wetly slapped at her feet.

Nausea rolled over her. With an empty stomach she was left to wrestle with dry a heave as she struggled to shove the memory out of view as quickly as possible.

It’s gone.

It’s gone.

I’m never working in a shop again.

“Awake?” 

It took great effort, but Eliza was able to turn her head toward the voice. Flush beside her bed was a stainless steel worktable with what she assumed was a mannequin arm laid across it. Mr. Stamatin was hunched over it as he fiddled with its wrist. She had to clear her throat to find her voice. “...yeah.”

He did not look up. “Good, good.”

“What… happened? Is this the hospital? What…” Eliza trailed off as she felt her heart pick up pace, the pressure in her skull increasing. Fuck. She sucked in a shaky, steadying breath. Grateful for whatever IV cocktail she’d been put on because drug weight seemed to be the only thing grounding her. The space outside of their halo was dim, but not indiscernible. More of what you’d expect from a typical OR– equipment she barely recognized, messes of tubes and bags and lcd monitors. Most of it appeared a couple decades out of date, but not so old as to be unrecognizable. 

But mixed in between the islands of sterile surgical steel were more commercial-looking workbenches and organizers. Stations more befitting of the scene shop they shared than a hospital. Squinting past the darkness, she could swear she saw five… maybe six ornately carved wood panels lined up along a far wall–and if she focused she could smell sawdust underscoring the sterile sharpness of the cramped room.

Mr. Stamatin took a few moments to wrap up his work before pulling away from the arm, directing his attention fully on Eliza. She hadn’t noticed before, but despite the clear cut and peeled back skin around the carpal bones, he held no blade or tool in his hand. He wasn’t even wearing gloves–his bare fingers shone bright red in the lamplight. “You are in my surgery. Your sleeve was pulled into the lathe, along with your arm. Thankfully the rest of you did not follow.”

‘My’ surgery? “...is that my arm?”

“Not the original. That was irrecoverable. However, I happen to have a spare that should substitute just fine, with a bit of tailoring.” He turned back to his work. The tips of his fingers peeled back to reveal bleached bone tips, sharpened to fine points which easily manipulated the fine bands of tissue of the substitute hand. 

Eliza blearily blinked past this, squeezing her eyes shut until she saw stars and looked again. The bare bone was still there, still fraying away loose tendon string. Okay. Cool. Meanwhile, Mr. Stamatin’s words glided across the IV-glossed surface of her brain like a skater on fresh ice. Lost an arm but don’t worry. You’re getting a new one. As you do. “It looks dead.”

He nodded. “It is. For now. Once it’s attached to your circulatory system it should start waking back up– expect pins and needles for at least the first 12 hours, if not a full 24. Should be indistinguishable from the old one within the month.”

“Where did you get it?”

Silence. A small smile.  “You are taking this in stride.”

“I’m so fucked up I can’t even move. Not much of a choice.” Eliza’s attention turned toward her legs. With some effort, she was able to wiggle her feet around but not much else. “What am I on?”

“A cot.”

“Drugs. What drugs am I on?”

“A cocktail of barbiturates, saline solution and blood.” He glanced up at her, “would you have preferred I held off on the painkillers?”

When Eliza tilted her head back, the muscles in her neck seized painfully. Maybe he hadn’t given her enough. “...where did you get the blood?”

“Self-donated.” He gestured toward his arm, where she could see the tell-tale bruising of a heavy blood draw. “Lucky you, I’m a universal donor.”

Eliza lifted an eyebrow. “Was the arm self-donated as well?”

“...well, I had it on hand and am giving it to you. So, technically, yes.”

“Who’s arm is it?”

“No one you know.” He cracked his knuckles and leaned back, admiring it. “And its originator gave it to me freely, so you can let your conscience rest. No mutiny from this one.”

Eliza’s heart was shrieking in her chest, but she felt a part of herself nodding along. Maybe it's a dream? And if it isn’t… that arm looks pretty goddamn real, and fresh. She thought back to an uncle of hers that had his pointer finger lopped off by a butcher knife, how they iced it and stitched it back on. Less dexterous, a bit more pale, but functional. He seems stable. Like he knows what he’s doing… I think. She let her head fall back onto the cot with a sigh. “...are you, like, a med school dropout or something? Is patching people up a hobby of yours?”

Mr. Stamatin stood, looping around to the cot’s open side. His hands reached toward her butchered shoulder, disappearing from her field of view as she felt the pin-prick sensation of something tugging along the outer socket.  “All I ask is for you to trust me. Trust that I will do right by you, as someone under my care. Can I expect that from you?”

Eliza met his gaze. His eyes level with an intensity that honed onto the hairline fractures of her doubt, splitting it apart. Maybe it was something in that cocktail being mainlined into her veins. Maybe it was the shock of the situation. Whatever the cause, it wasn’t as tall of an ask as it should have been. “Again--not much of a choice, is it?”

He sat on this for a moment before turning his attention back to the socket. “How about this– if you aren’t pleased with my work, I will take you straight to the hospital. I brought you here since my home is a stone’s throw from the theater and you weren’t in stable condition. But now that you are stable–”

“--can’t you take me now?” Eliza shifted uncomfortably under the increasing burn of whatever was being done to her shoulder. “Get a professional to stitch up my arm?”

He scoffed. “A surgeon wouldn’t be able to apply this arm.”

“What do you mean a surgeon can’t? Isn’t that what you’re attempting?”

“What I’m doing is something a little more esoteric than surgery.”

“Oh, esoteric. ” Eliza groaned, “just what I want from my doctor–out of pocket procedures from Alister Crowley's big book of limb re-application.”

Mr. Stamatin’s stoic composure cracked slightly, “Oh please my practices predate him by over a millennium.”

“You’ve been doing this for a millennium?”

A wink. “Promise you won’t tell?”

If Eliza had a working arm, she’d have crossed herself. “On my grandpa’s gr–AAAHHFUCK!”

The burn flared out into an agonizing flame, hastily extinguished when Mr. Stamatin pulled back. “Shit. Forgive me, I forgot to sever the nerves.”

“What the fuck?” Eliza gasped.

“Stay with me. Talk. Let’s talk.” He caught her gaze with his own as he went back to work, “Who introduced you to carpentry?”

“Nobody–I watched some youtube videos and improvised from there –fuck! ” The pain flared again then dimmed with a snap–replaced by an unsettling numbness. “This feels like an interrogation. I feel like I’m being tortured.”

“...it does, doesn’t it?” Mr. Stamatin cleared his throat, an uncomfortable beat of silence as he searched for words. “Would you prefer to keep asking the questions? Would that help? I talk, you focus on the mend and listen?”

“Yeah…” Eliza’s attention drifted back to the wood panels. The one closest to the light depicted a tirelessly detailed oak tree, where every branch served roost to a host of different birds. They were difficult to differentiate, fine details bleeding together in the dark. It was a riot of fluid, fluttering plumage and verdant canopy. “Two questions. First: What is your name? Your full one. If I’m going to stay in your SAW basement I should at least know that. Second: If you didn’t go to school… where’d you learn to do… whatever this is? With the arm?”

“To the first–Anatol. My name is Anatol.” He stood, walking back to the arm. He gingerly picked it up, slowly turning it over in his grasp. “To the second–I will tell you on the condition that, should you be happy with your… miraculous recovery, you swear to keep what occurred tonight as a secret between us. On your life. Fair?”

“...fair.” Eliza resigned. “On my life.”

“Thank you.” He sat back down next to her exposed shoulder, aligning the humeral head of her arm with her shoulder’s socket. “This will hurt, but it will be brief. On three?”

A knot formed in her throat as she nodded. “On three.”

He adjusted his grip. “One.”

She clenched her jaw. “Two.”

“Three.”

Ao3 - Next Chapter

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 68 - Babel by R. F. Kuang

Overview

I came to Babel with extremely little knowledge about the actual contents of the book but a deep sense of all the vibes swirling around its reception – that it was robbed of a Hugo nomination (if the author didn’t outright refuse it), that it’s probably the single buzziest and most Important sf/f release of 2022, that it was stridently political, and plenty more besides. I also went in having mostly enjoyed The Poppy War series and being absolutely enamoured by the elevator pitch of an alternate history Industrial Revolution where translation is literally magic. And, well-

It is wrong to say I hated this book, but only because keeping track of my complaints and starting organize this review in my head was entertaining enough to keep me invested in the reading experience.

The story is set in an alternate 1830s, where the rise of the British Empire relies upon the dominance of its translators, as it is the mixture of translation and silverworking, the inscription of match-pairs in different languages on bars of worked silver and the leveraging of the ambiguity and loss of meaning between them that fuels the world’s magic. The protagonist is pluckted from his childhood home in Canton after his family dies in a cholera outbreak and whisked away to the estate of Professor Lowell, an Oxford translator he quickly realized is his unacknowledged father. He’s made to choose an English name (Robin Swift) and raised and tutored as a future translator in service to the Empire.

The meat of the story is focused on Robin’s education in Oxford, his relationship with the rest of his cohort, and his growing radicalization and entanglement with the revolutionary Hermes Society. Things come to a head when in his fourth year the cohort is sent back to Canton to, well, help provoke the first Opium War, though none of them aware of that. The final act follows the fallout of that, by which I mean it lives up to the full title of “Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution”.

To be clear, this was technically a very accomplished book. The writing never dragged and the prose was, if not exactly lyrical, always clear and often evocative. Despite the breadth of space and time the story covers, I never had any complaints about the pacing – and honestly, the ending was, dramatically speaking, one of the more natural and well-executed ones I’ve read recently. It’s very well-constructed.

All that being said – allow me to apologize for how the rest of this is mostly just going to be a litany of complaints. But the book clearly believes itself to be an important and meaningful work of political art, which means I don’t feel particularly bad about holding it to high standards.

Narrative Voice

To start with, just, dear god the tone. This is a book with absolutely zero faith in its audience’s ability to reach their own conclusions, or even follow the symbolism and implication it lays down. Every important point is stated outright, repeated, and all but bolded and underlined. In this book set in 1830s England there are footnotes fact-checking the imperialists talking heads to, I guess, make sure we don’t accidentally become convinced by their apologia for the slave trade? Everything is just relentlessly didactic, in a way that ended up feeling rather insulting even when I agreed with the points Kuang was making.

More than that, and this is perhaps a more subjective complaint but – for an ostensible period piece, the narrative voice and perspective just felt intensely modern? This was theoretically an omniscient third person book, with the narrative voice being pretty distinct from any of the actual characters – with the result that the implicit narrator was instead the sort of person of spends six hours a day getting into arguments on twitter and for this effort calls themselves a progressive activist. The identities of all the characters – as delivered by the objective narration – were all very neat and legible from the perspective of someone at a 2022 HR department listing how diverse their team was, which was somewhere between a tragic lost opportunity to show how messy and historical racial/ethnic/national identities are and outright anachronistic, depending. (This was honestly one of the bigger disappointments, coming from Kuang’s earlier work. Say what you will of The Poppy War series, the narration is with Rin all the way down, and it trusts the reader enough not to blink.) More than that it was just distracting – the narration ended up feeling like an annoying obstacle between me and the story, and not in any fun postmodern way either.

Characters

Speaking of the cast – they simply do not sound or feel like they actually grew up in the 19th century. Now, some modernization of speech patterns and vocabulary and moral commensense is just the price of doing business with mass market period pieces, granted, but still – no 19th century Anglo-Indian revolutionary is going use the phrase ‘Narco-military state’ (if for no other reason than we’re something like a century early for ‘narco-state’ to be coined as a term at all). An even beyond feeling out of time most of the characters feel kind of thinly sketched?

Or no, it’s not that the characters are thinly sketched so much as their relationships are. We’re repeatedly, insistently told that these four students are fast friends and closer than family and would happily die for each other, but we’re very rarely actually shown it. This is partly just a causality of trying to skim over a four-year university education in the middle third of one book, I think, but still – the good times and happy moments are almost always sort of skimmed over, summarized in the course of a paragraph or two that usually talk in terms of memories and consequences more than the relationships themselves. The points of friction and the arguments, meanwhile, are usually played out entirely on the page, or at least described in much more detail. In the end you kind of have to just take it as read that any of these people actually love each other, given that at least two of them seem to be feuding at any given point for the entire time they know each other.

Letty deserves some special attention. She’s the only white member of Robin’s cohort at Babel and she honestly feels like less of acharacter and more a collection of tropes about white women in progressive spaces? Even more than the rest, it’s hard to believe the rest of the class views her as beloved ride-or-die found family when essentially every time she’s on screen it’s so she can do a microagression or a white fragility or something. Also, just – you know how relatively common it is to see just, blatantly misogynistic memes repackaged as anti-racist because it specifies ‘white women’? There’s a line in this that almost literally says ‘Letty wasn’t doing anything to disprove the stereotype of woman as uselessly emotional and hysteric’.

Also, she’s the one who ends up betraying the other three and trying to turn them in when they turn revolutionary. Which is probably inevitable given the book’s politics, but as it happened felt like less of the shocking betrayal that it was supposed to be and more just, checking off a box for a dramatic reverse. Of course she turned on them, none of them ever really seemed to even like each other.

As a Period Piece

So, the book is set in the 1830s, in the midst of the industrial revolution and its social fallout, and the leadup to the First Opium War (which is, through the magic of, well, magic ,but also mercantilist economics, make into a synecdoche for British global dominion more broadly). On the one hand, the setting is impeccably researched, recent and relevant historical events are referenced whenever they would come up, and the footnotes are full to bursting with quotes and explanations of texts or cultural ephemera that’s brought up in the narration.

On the other, the setting doesn’t feel authentic in the slightest, the portrayal of the British Empire is bizarrely inconsistent, and all that richly researched historical grounding ends up feeling less like a living world and more like a particularly well-down set for a Doctor Who episode.

The story is incredibly focused around Oxford as a city and a university. There’s a whole author’s note about the research and slight changes made into its geography and I absolutely believe its portrayal as a physical location and the laws about how women were treated and how the different colleges were organized and all that is exactly as accurate as Kuang wanted them to be. The issue is really the people. With the exception of a few cartoonish villains who barely get more than a couple pages apiece, no one feels, sounds like, or acts like they actually belong in the 19th century. The racism the protagonists struggle with all feels much more 21st century than Victorian, and the frame of mind everyone inhabits still comes across more as ‘unusually blatantly racist Englishman’ than 19th century scholars and polymaths.

This is especially blatant as far as religion goes. It’s occasionally mentioned, sure enough, but to the extent anyone actually believes in Christianity it’s of a very modern and disenchanted sort – this is a society that sends out missionaries as a conscious tool of colonial expansion, not because of anything as silly or absurd as actually wanting to spread their gospel. Also like, it’s Oxford, in the nineteenth century. For all the racism the protagonists have to deal with, they should be getting so much more shit from ‘well-meaning’ locals and students trying to save their (one Muslim, one atheist, one probably Christian but black and protective of Haitian Vodou on a cultural level which would be more than enough) souls.

Or, and this is more minor, it is a central conceit of the whole finale that if a few (like, two) determined revolutionaries can infiltrate Babel they’ll be able to take the entire place hostage with barely any trouble. This is because the students and professors there are, basically, whimpy bookworms who’ll faint at the sight of blood and have no stomach for the sort of violence their work actually supports and drives. Which – look, I really don’t want to defend the ruling class of Victorian Britain here, but I’m not sure physical cowardice is really one of their failings, as a group? I mean, there’s an entire system of institutionalized child abuse in the boarding schools they went to to get them used to taking and dealing out violence and abuse. Basically every upper-class sport is thinly disguised military drill or ritual combat (okay, or rowing). Half of them would graduate to immediately running off and invading places for the glory of the queen. I’m not sure two sleep-deprived nerds with knives would actually have been able to cow the crowd here, is what I’m saying. (This would stick out less if the text wasn’t so dripping with contempt for them on precisely these grounds.)

Much less minor are our heroic revolutionaries themselves. And okay, this is more a matter of taste than anything but like – the Hermes Society is an illegal conspiracy of renegade current and former Babel scholars dedicated to using their knowledge of magic and access to university resources to oppose and undermine the British Empire in general and the work of the school in particular. Think Metternich’s worse nightmare, but in Oxford instead of Paris and focused on colonial liberation (continental Europe barely exists for the purposes of the book, Britain is Empire.) So! A secret society of professional revolutionaries in the heydey of just that, with a name that just has to be Hermetic symbolism, who concern themselves with both high politics and metaphysics.

They are just so very, very boring. This is the age of the Conspiracy of the Equals, the Carbonari, the Seasons! The literal Illumanti are still within living memory! Where’s the pageantry, the ritual, the grandiosity? The elaborate initiation rituals and oaths of undying loyalty? They’re so pragmatic, so humble, so (and I know I keep coming back to this) modern. It’s just such an utter wasted opportunity. Even beyond the level of aesthetics, these are revolutionaries with remarkably little positive ideology – the oppose colonialism and racism for reasons they take as self-evident and so don’t feel the need to theorize about it (and talk about them with the vocabulary of a modern activist, because of course they do), but they’re pretty much consciously agnostic as to what world should look like instead. They vaguely end up supporting a sort of petty-bourgeois socialism (in the Marxist sense), but the alliance with Luddites is essentially political convenience – they really don’t seem to have any vision of the future at all, either in England or the various places they claim as homelands.

On Empire and Industrialization

The story is set during the early nineteenth century, so of course the Industrial Revolution is a pretty core part of the background. The Silver Industrial Revolution, technically, since the Babellers translation magic is in this world a key and load-bearing part of it. Despite the addition of miracle-working enhancers and supports to its fundamental technology, the industrial revolution plays out pretty identically to history – right down to the same cities becoming hubs of industry, despite steam engines using enchanted silver instead of coal and thus, presumably, the entire economic and logistical system that brought this particular cities to prominence being totally unrecognizable. This is not a book that’s in any way actually about tracing how something would change history – which isn’t a complaint, to be clear, that’s a perfectly valid creative choice.

It does, however, make it rather galling that the single actually significant difference to history is that the introduction of magic turns the industrial revolution into a Legend of Zelda boss with a giant glowing weak point you can hit to destroy the whole enterprise.

On a narrative level, I get it – it simplifies things and allows for a far happier and more dramatic ending if destroying Babel is not just a symbolic act but also literally sends London Bridge falling down and scuttles the entire royal navy and every mill and factory in Britain. It’s just that I think that by doing so it trades away any chance for actually making interesting commentary on anti-colonial and -capitalist resistance. A world where a single act of spectacular terrorism really can destroy a modern empire is frankly so detached from our world that it ceases to be able to really materially comment upon it.

Like, the principle reason to not take the Luddites as your role models is not that they were morally vicious but that they were doomed – capitalism’s ability to repair damage to infrastructure and fixed goods is legitimately very impressive! Trying to force an entire ruling class not to adopt a technology that makes whoever commits to it tremendous amounts of money (thus, power) is a herculean task even when you have a state apparatus and standing army – adding an ‘off’ button to the lot of it just trades all sense of relevance for a satisfyingly cathartic ending.

(This is leaving untouched how the book just takes it as a given that the industrial revolution was a strictly immiserating force that did nothing but redistribute money from artisans to capitalists. Which certainly tracks as something people at the time would have thought but given how resolutely modern all the other politics in the work are rings really weirdly.)

All of which is only my second biggest issue with how the book presents its successful resistance movement. It all pales in comparison to making the Empire a squeamish paper tiger.

Like, the book hates colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular, the narrative and footnotes are filled with little asides about various atrocities and injustices and just ways it was racist or complicit in some particular atrocity. But more than that it is contemptuous of it, it views the empire as (as the cliche goes) a perpetually rotting edifice that just needs one good kick; that it persists only through the myth of its own invincibility, and has no stomach for violent resistance from within. Which is absolutely absurd, and the book does seem to know it on occasion when it off-handedly mentions e.g. the Peterloo Massacre – but a character whose supposed to be the grizzled cynical pragmatic revolutionary still spouts off about how slave rebellions succeed because their masters aren’t willing to massacre their own property. Which is just so spectacularly wrong on every axis its actually almost offensive.

More importantly, the entire final act of the story relies upon the fact that the British Empire would allow a handful of foreign students seize control of a vital piece of infrastructure for weeks on end and do nothing but try to wait them out as the national physically falls apart around them. Like, c’mon, there would be siege artillery set up and taking shots by the end of week two. As with the Oxford students, the Victorian elite had all manner of flaws – take your pick, really – but squeamishness wasn’t really one of them.

On Magic

So the magical system underlying the whole story is – you know how Machinaries of Empire makes imperial ideology and metaphysics literally magical, giving expert technicians the ability to create superweapons and destroy worlds provided that the Hexarchate’s subjects observe the imperial calendar of rites and celebrate its triumphs/participate in rituals glorying in the torture of its ‘heretics’? It’s not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.

Babel does something similar, except the foundational atrocity fueling the engine of empire on a metaphysical level is, like, cultural appropriation. As an organizing metaphor, I find this less compelling.

Leaving that aside, the story makes translation literally capable of miracle-working – which of necessity requires making ‘languages’ distinct natural categories with observable metaphysical boundaries. It then sets the story in the 19th century – the era of newborn nation states and education systems and national literatures, where the concept of the national-linguistic community was the obsession of the entire European intelligentsia. Now this is not a book concerned with how the presence of magic would actually have changed history, in the slightest, but like – given how fascinated it is by translation and linguistics you’d think the whole ‘a language is a dialect with a navy’ cliché would at least get a light mention (but then the book doesn’t really treat language as any more inherent or natural than it does any other modern identity category, I suppose.)

As an Allegory

Okay, so having now spent an embarrassing number of words establishing to my own satisfaction that the book really doesn’t work at all as a period piece, let us consider; what if it wasn’t trying to be?

A great many things about the book just fit much better if you take it as a commentary on the modern university with Victorian window-dressing. Certainly the driving resentment of Oxford as an institution that sustains itself and grows rich off the exploitation of international students it considers second-class seems far more apt applied to contemporary elite western schools than 19th century ones. Likewise the racism the heroes face all seems like the kind you’d expect in a modern English town rather than a Victorian one. I’m not well-versed enough on the economics of the city to know for sure, but I would wager that the gleeful characterization of Oxford as a city that literally starts falling to ruin without the university to support it was also less accurate in the 1830s than it is today.

Read like this, everything coheres much better – but the most striking thing becomes the incredible vanity of the book. This is a morality tale where the natural revolutionary vanguard with the power to bring global hegemony to its knees through nothing but witholding their labour are..students at elite western universities (not, I must say, a class I’d consider in dire need of having their egos boosted). The emotions underlying everything make much more sense, but the plot itself becomes positively myopic.

Beyond that – if this is a story about international students at elite universities, it does a terrible job of actually portraying them. Or, properly, it only shows a certain type; just about every foreign-born student or professor we meet is some level of revolutionary, deeply opposed in principle to the empire they work within. No one is actually convinced by the carrot of a life as an exploited but exceedingly comfortable and well-compensated technician in the imperial core, and there’s not really acknowledgement at all of just how much of the apparatus of international institutions and governments in the global south – including positions with quite a bit of real power – end up being staffed by exactly that demographic who just sincerely agree with the various ideological projects employing them. Kuang makes it far too easy on herself by making just about every person of colour in the books one of the good guys, and totally undersells how convincing hegemonic ideology can be, basically.

The Necessity of Violence

This is a pet peeve and it’s a very minor thing that I really wouldn’t bring it up if that wasn’t literally part of the title. But it is, so – it’s a plot point that’s given a decent amount of attention that Griffin (Robin’s secret older brother, grizzled professional revolutionary, his introduction to anti-colonialism) is blamed for murdering one of his classmates who had the bad luck to be studying while he was sneaking in to steal some silver – a student that was quite well-loved by the faculty and her very successful classmates, who have never forgiven him. Later on, it’s revealed that this is an utter rewriting of history, and she’d been a double agent pretending to let herself be recruited into the Hermes Society who’d been luring Griffin into an ambush when he killed her and escaped.

This is – well, the most predictable not-even-a-twist imaginable, for one, but also – just rank cowardice. You titled the book ‘the necessity of violence’, the least you can do is actually own it and show that violent resistance means people (with faces, and names, not just abstractions only ever talked about in general terms) who are essentially personally innocent are going to end up collateral damage, and people are going to hold grudges about it. Have some courage in your convictions!

Translation

Okay, all of that said, this isn’t a book that’s wholly bad, or anything. In particular, you can really tell how much of a passion Kuang has for the art and science of translation. The depth of knowledge and eagerness to share just about overflows from the page whenever the book finds an excuse to talk about it at length, and it’s really very endearing. The philosophizing about translation was also as a rule much more interesting and nuanced then whenever the book tried to opine about high politics or revolutionary tactics.

Anyways, I really can’t recommend the book in any real way, but it did stick in my head for long enough that I’ve now written 4,000 words about it. So at the very least it’s the interesting sort of bad book, y’know?

[the-goya-jerker]

do you have any thoughts on nine inch nails/their song “closer” and the music video for it?

to preface: i am autistic and nine inch nails is a special interest for me. “closer” has a deeper meaning than “the sex song” and is part of a big concept album, and i genuinely think trent reznor is a great artist & director, but people brush off his music/videos because it’s “just” sexual or controversially erotic. well, like klimt or whoever said, all art is erotic!! everything has value no matter what part of your brain it is appealing to. the-goya-jerker dot tumblr dot com i think you are the only guy who actually understands this. you dont have to agree with me i just respect how you view art from the perspective of a nine inch nails fan

Thank you for bringing your special interest to me, dear stranger. I am a king, presented a beautiful gift on a velvet cushion. A princess being given the dearest of unicorn foals to nurture here.

I never knew that The Downward Spiral was a concept album. (My music knowledge tends to be broad and shallow over narrow and deep, y'know?). I knew a few songs (The Only Time is a personal fave) but I didn't know much about the band.

So, just as an overview of the album it's about the narrator's titular downward spiral. Wikipedia lists the themes as: "religion, dehumanization, violence, disease, society, drugs, sex, and finally, suicide."

Just looking at Closer, it's not hard to see why people think of it as a "sex song", honestly. But much like a lot of popular art, I encourage the audience to really listen to the lyrics here, to examine it in a different way.

The backing track (hiiii Iggy Pop! Iggy Pop cameo here!!) has a strong rhythm. The breathy vocals add to the sexual feeling of the song. The lyrics are, on a surface level, talking about sex. But there's some pretty loaded language included. The narrator doesn't just use your typical words like making love or fucking. He "desecrates" he "violates" he "uses". The use of the phrase "I wanna fuck you like an animal" isn't about the intensity, it's about self-degradation.

I think a pretty fair general interpretation (and do come correct me if you think otherwise anon!) is that the narrator wants to escape himself, his flaws, his self loathing, by having sex with people. He wants to be someone else.

This isn't a song about just having sex, this is a song about hating yourself so much that sex feels like it must be degrading for the other person just because it's with you.

There's also some things going on with religion and sexuality here. Sex is a desecration of the partner, it is making them worse, it is using them. But also there's this desperate devotion to this person. The way he says "You make me perfect / Help me become somebody else", the constant pleas for help dispersed throughout, even the section where he offers up himself entirely... it feels like borderline religious devotion. But this contrasts against the desecration in a way that's very fascinating to me.

As a review? I give this a 9/10. It's erotic, but not in the way most people assume. The devotion and degradation as constant themes really sell it. The religious themes add to it wonderfully. And I love to hear a man beg.

The only reason it's not 10/10 is because I know Closer to God (the reworking of this track) gets that honor. I think it just elevates the track even more when the two are presented side by side, and for me Closer to God wins out. The more staticky track is really right up my alley (I enjoy the more industrial and distorted sound of it).

In the end though, both feel transcendentally erotic in their own way.

The songs in question for anyone who wants them:

[etrosgate]

do you remember hearing about a kpop horror movie? well it's finally back on streaming services again, after years of being accessible almost exclusively through 3rd party websites in shit quality with logos all over it. and what better news, it's free on tubi! (and even freer if you have adblock)

white: melody of death (2011) is about a failing idol group getting haunted because they steal an unpublished song+dance routine from the 90's. yeah it's about the horrors of the industry, but feels very grounded in a "oh yeah, being an idol is just a job. and jobs can suck ass, even if you like the work itself" kind of way. like it wasn't made out of disdain for being this kind of performer.

it's not a masterpiece, but it's a movie i really like, and hope other people will enjoy too :)

WARNING: the climax of the film involves some extremely intense strobing lights for a pretty extended period of time. like im not fucking around it's really bad. iirc beyond typical horror movie blood and violence, there is also suicide, and a character getting coerced into sex (they don't show any of this particular act onscreen)

[yuripoll]

KNOCKOUTS: Saihate no Serenade (2022 - ?)

Saihate no Serenade is an ongoing thriller by Hino Hiroko about a two girls, matricide, and piano.

An intense suspense about a piano prodigy and her mother's murder by the industry's hottest talent, Hino Hiroko! A country town in Hokkaido. Ritsu is a junior high school student who lives in a house with a piano teacher, and Saya is a transfer student who attends the school. As the two grow closer through a piano competition, Saya tells Ritsu that she wants to kill her mother. Time passes, and ten years later. Ritsu is spending her busy days in the editorial department of a weekly magazine in Tokyo, when a body is found in her hometown in Hokkaido, causing a commotion. A memory of ten years ago and a ten year gap. As if ignoring the length of time, the story now begins to move forward. - Mangadex

No official ENG; JP available on Comic Walker.

CWs under the cut. General severity rating: moderate.

not strictly yuri? question mark? <- only four chapters have been translated and while there are definitely some yurious overtones, there's nothing really outright and its not tagged on AniList or MAL or Mangadex as GL. i have my hopes. manifesting.

blood & murder <- murder is a major plot point. violence isn't freuquently actually shown, but is talked about and implied a lot. multiple cases of head trauma in which you see blood, but no detailed injury.

emotional abuse <- from a mother. sayo's mother is always denigrating her piano playing, to a degree that sayo might want to run away, and fantasises about killing her.

HEADS UP: as already mentioned, only four chapters of the three volumes that have been released at time of writing have been translated, so take the content warnings with a grain of salt. i've flicked through the raws up til ch15 and from what i can tell, this is pretty much accurate up til there.

[dustedmagazine]

Elucid — Revelator (Fat Possum)

The way muography works is similar to an X-ray in that it’s basically a noninvasive form of photography, only more intense. Muons, which are cosmic particles akin to neutrinos, are constantly moving through space and matter; captured by a muon detector, they can show an extremely detailed image of what they’ve just passed through. In practical terms, this intense imaging allows engineers to examine the integrity of stuff like the crumbling Brunelleschi’s dome or Berlin’s Kongresshalle. It also acts as a good conduit for thinking about how Elucid raps.

The Queens artist born Chaz Hall is a hip-hop veteran who at this point is probably best known as half of the attention-grabbing, truth-thumping duo Armand Hammer alongside Billy Woods. That group is a study of marked contrasts and otherworldly balance borne of the streets: In one corner, Woods simmering until he can’t help but burn fire and brimstone running roughshod over rhythms and eating up bars with an unhinged urgency as though it were his last meal; in the other, Elucid approaching his rhymes like Rafa Nadal, patiently, relentlessly chipping away with ethereal anger every bit Woods’ equal but drawn in less direct forms, webs spun so far out you’re only sure of what he’s spoken on once he’s passed through you. There’s a reason they resonate, a reason they’ve gotten so well known in less visible hip-hop circles in recent years.

But it’s no different when you go splitting atoms: Like Woods, Elucid is a persistent purveyor of the spoken word in ways that sometimes elude immediate understanding. The dude is battle-hardened and road-tested to the tune of five Armand Hammer LPs; three further collaborations as part of Cult Favorite, Nostrum Grocers and Small Bills; and now, with Revelator, three solo albums. Though all of his records are personal even when they don’t feel that way, Revelator doesn’t come from the same place as I Told Bessie, the paean to his grandmother; rather, it feels like he’s redirecting his focus to the world as he observes it.

Predictably, it ain’t pretty. “Metropolis / Inverse overlord skyscape / Fang bite, dog breath / Short leash, pit fight / From this height, at this speed / Downhill, careening” are the first words you hear to open both “The World Is Dog” and the album. Amid a swirling, industrial-strength beat, Elucid goes in on the basic viciousness of being alive. The familiar theme of survival in an uncaring system is what he — and we, by extension — are up against: Showing you where localized perceived violence didn’t come with receipts, parades of bandages, terroristic threats over crack sales … “Even rebels gotta pause / when blood spill so casually,” he offers early on “CCTV.”

But as he counters himself on “Yottabyte,” the struggle goes on. “You just gotta hold on / all that’s doing / Not an invitation to control / Can’t nobody tell me how my blood taste / My third place / complicating noun combinations over drum breaks.” Just as readily as he scythes through verses ducking and diving and weaving among the perils of living in America in 2024, so too does he point out this isn’t over, that the fight to maintain one’s dignity and morals is a daily occurrence worth the war — you go down, but you go down swinging. Some stretches are more dense, more abstract than others, but no matter the track, no matter the verbal recombinations, you feel those muons leaving a clear picture come its conclusion. The impression is always strong.

Revelator’s production aids and abets his approach. Behind the boards, there’s Michigan producer and Small Bits collaborator The Lasso, August Fanon and Child Actor; in the studio, it’s drummer John Nellen and Irreversible Entanglements bassist Luke Stewart. The result is a swirling, dissonant soundscape following in a proud lineage of New York indie rap albums that extends from JPEGMafia back to Dälek, Def Jux and Public Enemy, ultimately — a maximalist counterweight to Ka’s quiet penmanship. And not to lean too heavily on Armand Hammer references, but it also bears mentioning that “Instant Transfer” was on the group’s BLK LBL album out in March and has now been refashioned as an Elucid song featuring Woods. Pedantry aside, it slots right into one of the most abrasive (but not in a SoundCloud way), masterfully produced albums of any genre this year.

It’s also not for everybody. Even at 15 tracks, which feels slight in a year where Cowboy Carter, Cindy Lee, Mount Eerie and others have garnered so much acclaim, Revelator is an exhausting listen in the best sense of the term. Skip at your own risk: Far from hip-hop homework, Elucid’s Revelator is a port of call in this storm, a howling document from the edge, muons in which we are all tomographers.

Patrick Masterson

[beeblackburn]

Top 5 favourite films?

Thank you, @hiddenlookingglass!

Before I continue, I have to give the obvious caveat that I haven't watched a ton of films, relatively speaking. I think most of these films were watched last year alone. And, making this list, I have to give honorable mentions, because, fuck me, originally this list was seven entries and, short of cheating this ask to write out top seven or ten, it was never going to happen without title-dropping the runner-ups, so here goes:

You Were Never Really Here: Take the premise of John Wick, drain it of all the orchestra and slickness, ground it in broken people, scarred by violence in childhood to adulthood, and polish it off with some of the tightest film editing and sound design in the industry, and you get my unquestionably favorite anti-violence film.

The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascenscia: A lovely and tragic indie gem of an animated film about a cult, one that finally clicked the appeal of them without diminishing their harm, and one that breaks me in touching on my own questions of loneliness... and whether being in an unhealthy dynamic is better than being alone.

Paddington: The second one is undeniably an even better film, but this one's rain scenes and leisurely narrative feels cozier to me. Whenever I feel like complete dogshit, I rewatch this, because Paddington's charm and earnestness winning over the Browns before realizing he found his family and home with them is hrrgh.

The Green Knight: A visually sumptuous banquet of the senses, trippy and wondrous in how it depicts Gawain's knightly trials, with moral and literary themes that scratch my itches and a fantastic leading actor who carries the film, complete with an ending that brings it all home, landing with such an earned emotional punch.

The Witch: Eggers' mastery at inhabiting the psychological reality of his time periods is impeccable, and it all started with this horror tale of a family plagued by the supernatural outside their walls... and religious anguish and Puritan misogyny among its members. Paired with a hell of an ending and arresting last shot? Delicious.

And, now, onto the proper top five!

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Look, is the script overstuffed with exposition about how the multiverse works? Yes. Is it ultimately narratively unwieldly, even faking us out with a false climax, and increasingly uneven to the end? Yes. Are some of the jokes pretty juvenile in the "haha, dildos are funny" realm? Yes. Could it have been more queer? Yes. Is the conclusion a little too tidy and pat, especially for my Chinese childhood abused-ass? Yes, yes, yes. There are definitely fair criticisms that I can agree to, but...

Every time I revisit this film, it wrecks me a whole another way. I never escape this film emotionally unscathed, I philosophically and morally match to it like an alternate version of me jumped into my mind, slipped into my flesh. There are at least five scenes in it that crack me open like a chestnut and I'm left a blubbering mess and astonished at how it manages to tie together all the chaos at the end in such believable catharsis that I can still buy into.

It's still an amazingly-acted film that allows for a rough, unpleasant, and embittered middle-aged female protagonist to lead the events, quite a few ladies dictate and command the plot, and manages to juggle a ton of disparate tones, balancing genuine pathos with bathos, and emotional weight undergirding every bit of silliness and goofy concepts it throws at you. It's still a multiversal familial drama that, at the heart of it, is centered around the experience of what if our first-generation immigrant parents made different choices, that failure can be its own positive experience in a lifetime full of not living up to your parents-demanded potential, and that, in depressive ennui, loneliness, and intense nihilism, all we can do is love, embrace what little joys our speck of lives get, and be there for each other. That, despite the material hardships and pain of a life, our connections still matter enough to keep at it.

It throws the totality of everything beyond the universe at our minds and senses, even down to "talking" rocks and sausage-fingers people, calling to the sheer information overload that most everyone in 2022 felt keenly, acknowledging that it can be such a burden that threatens to hollow us out with existential indifference... and earnestly makes its own case against that. If nothing matters, if all we do and are is worthless in the grander scope of the universe, then these moments we're facing right now, the people in our lives, they matter.

We're not built to attend to everything everywhere all at once. We'll always feel the whisper of what-ifs, the weight of different paths not taken. We might even be useless alone. All we can really do, in the end, is be there for these moments and people around our present. I can't help, but cherish this film on those grounds, but it offered such an awe-inspiring, emotionally resonant experience that it jumps up to my favorite as a result.

2. Pig

How has this masterpiece of a debut, depicting grief, human connection, the heart and art being hollowed by loss and commercial concerns, and masculine vulnerability with such finesse, flown under the radar, nor been nominated for any major accolades? I'm genuinely asking, because, aside from maybe one particular scene that tries to fake us out into thinking it'll become a more conventional John Wickesque revenge thriller, I don't see any crucial flaws that wouldn't warrant it in the discussion as one of 2021's best films. If you haven't yet, treat yourself to one of the best films I've watched.

I watched one of its mid-section scenes, that speech, you know the one if you've watched it, on its own, and wept at the power of its acting, dialogue, and direction by itself. The fact that I still broke down, despite primed, when watching it in the context of the full film should tell you how good Sarnoski's hands are at his first try as director. He brings an intimacy and restraint to the camera in capturing the events in the film, often situating his central characters against the wider scope of his landscapes and environments through a wider lens, showing them as small people against the greater beasts of being scored by grief and loneliness.

Though, given I brought up John Wick, one facet these two share, despite the bait-and-switch of premise, is that almost every character, no matter how minor, has a personality and some texture of history with the protagonist, by direction or sheer acting. Sarnoski just trusts us to infer the weight of history between our characters and, if you want to know how well that approach turns out, Cage's performance should be the clear-cut sign. If you have any doubts of how good Nicholas Cage could be, and trust me, I had a few, this is easily his subtlest, most restrained performance. No signs of a Cage hamfest, this is him at his best and minutely controlled, portraying a stoic man whose hardened demeanor and lack of social graces belies a painful past and years spent in intentional human disconnect.

And how we disconnect from other people bleeds into this narrative, permeates like an unspoken wound that won't scar and heal without proper treatment. Our central characters are haunted by ghosts in the narrative, unable to process what they've lost or reach out to others, for fear of surrendering to the totality of pain from that absence. But there's also disconnect from retreating to what others want, never showing ourselves and only what's acceptable to our social peers, our patrons, or our families, and it costs us piece-by-piece until there's slowly nothing left of us.

And it ends up on an unexpected climax and such a gentle note about masculinity, about how men suffer in trying to bear their griefs stoically, instead of permitting a chink of vulnerability. I dare not spoil more, you have to see it for yourself in how it succeeds in defining its own terms for masculinity and how much emotion cracks through the narrative. It's a film that divulges into the nature of art and food, and how they can bring forth an invitation of connection to others, and it deserves so much consideration and attention, given how much of a powerhouse it is.

3. A Ghost Story

Oh, this sleeper hit of heartache. I knew, going in, that the ending scene would cut to the emotional bone, having checked it out in a clip before, but the knife this slid between my ribs was unexpected in its depth and sharpness, especially given when I watched it. This was after I watched both Pig and The Green Knight, both stellar, emotional films, and while I think Lowery's later work there is better put-together in both pacing and visuals (A Ghost Story absolutely has scenes that drag, and I genuinely think one in particular suffered from overstaying its moment and not fitting Lowery's strengths as a visual/atmospheric director), this touched me so much more in its statement of grief and time.

I've watched enough films to get a decent grasp on my tastes, and its meandering, contemplative, more mundane fares that let scenes breathe in their silence without a quippy aside. This one suffused me in its haunting, contemplative atmosphere from the halfway point, lingering onwards and well after it ended. Lowery's direction is grounded in its intimacy, choosing to focus long stretches on mundanities other directors would've skipped past, as if to say these small moments, daily and common as they are, are what's most important in the grand scope of life and what we focus on, despite the vastness on time upon us all.

And the time spent during grief is where the film guts me in its first half. Going from cozier domesticity, full of lived-in marital discussions and intimacies, to the tangle of strangers sorting through the post-death ceremonies and the silences in the griever's life, booming from the absence of their beloved. Those long, uninterrupted shots, from then on, serve to point out how life persists after our bereavements. There is such attention and empathy to the camera, in how the director wants to show how people cope with grief, how it dogs our every movement, weighs down our limbs, loosens out the tears inside, and make us focus our energies on such simple things like eating food in the dark, to fill the hole our losses leave behind.

But if some trace of us survive as ghosts, upon death, then loss cuts both ways, and it's here that this film truly unmakes me in how it handles grief and remembrance on the ethereal side. Using ghosts as a speculative vehicle, it invites us to see how differently they experience the passage of time, as these beings are temporally untethered, but stay geographically tethered to a particular land. There's such a bitter loneliness to their existences, how being unravaged by time means they are unable to grieve being left alone themselves, they cannot move on by the temporal march by itself.

It's a beautiful, tender film, where centuries can pass by in the blink of a transition, but tiny affections take up whole minutes. A quiet narrative where snapshots of marriage and the tolls of grief take up uninterrupted stretches, letting them sit inside us and linger. A poignant story that ponders, sincerely, if something, anything survives of us after we are gone from this earth, or if we are doomed to have our impact on this mortal plane swept aside and forgotten after we pass away and time moves on from us.

4. The Last Duel

I have a confession: this is my first and, so far, only Ridley Scott joint for various reasons. I don't love R-rated films, I easily get squeamish over live-action gore, and his biggest film and the one most people remember him by was Alien, which wasn't The Thing graphic, but definitely still above my comfort level! So I never touched him for a decade and a half. Now, later, I watched some of the earlier grisly parts of Game of Thrones and found out he directed plenty of period dramas, which was more my speed, and I got the opportunity to check his The Last Duel out with a group viewing. Now, given that preamble, imagine how I felt at its opening scene: a slow-burn of an opening with a lady being dressed before a duel between two men, shot in the same way they are being armored, as if she bears her life as well on the line, and bears witness to two knights charging at each other, before they converge, both hoping to break bones and shed blood.

That, and the subsequent Battle of Limoges, would absolutely impressed onto me that holy shit, Scott directs action in two minutes unquestionably better than some directors do in entire films. He portrays the inherent viciousness, filth, and ferocity of battle in a way that immediately clicked to me as a fan of Joe Abercrombie and a lesser one of Miles Cameron. And armor matters! But that, by itself, wouldn't have made for a favorite of mine. No, it's how this is a proper medieval legal drama with three central, compelling characters at its heart, each explored through a Rashomon-style framing device, and a heartbreakingly timeless message of what a rape victim's choices are in the patriarchy. Does it have its flaws? A few admittedly key ones of editing and dialogue that give away its directorial intent, but nothing so critical to weigh it down from its vaulted highs.

What's amazing about this film, and one of the key things I respect about it as someone who wants to write in that age, is how much, for the majority of its narrative, it is grounded in its medieval realities without turning its characters into anachronic mouthpieces. It has a showcase of warriors scarred and visually worn down by the wars they waged, discusses how the Black Death affected medieval economics and taxes, deals with betrothals and the dowries involved, and how waning wartime fortunes in a lord can sour the pot there, and the turmoil of marriage life, especially how reproductive knowledge intersected with beliefs about rape and love at the time. It admirably enmeshes itself so utterly in the culture of that age, that it's depressing to consider just how much patriarchal culture hasn't changed since then.

And how it divulges into patriarchal culture with nuance, and how women become victimized by it, is so key to making the proceeding duel all the more impactful. Because, as the framing device shows, these men don't come from a vacuum of their medieval culture, their egos and entitlements and self-justifications were shaped by their sexual circumstances and chivalric tales, and there are countless others like them who've done just as bad, if not worse, to others. It's why, even before the duel's outcome is set in stone, the crushing truth of the matter is... no matter the result, at least one individual dies, but the patriarchal apparatus stands, grinding up women in the future as it did the one witnessing the duel.

It's unflinching in its depiction of medieval culture, it's brutal in its violence, both warfare and sexual, and it demands an expectation of ambiguity in the character psychologies and gives no easy answers on how to deal with the patriarchy, especially when, as a lady of the time, you were dependent on the men who uphold it, at the mercy of their actions for your justice. It's why the last third is so harrowing: before the duel, before the trial, even before the incident, countless women went through similar horrors without the spectacle of public scrutiny. The final emotional context leaches the initial excitement when we return to the opening, leaving behind only cold understanding and terrible tension, no matter how much thrilling combat clashes and clangs in the winter air. It's my favorite period drama so far, and I don't expect it to be beat anytime soon.

5. The Secret of Nimh

Another confession: I didn't watch this, front to back, until the 30th Anniversary screening at my local Cineplex theater last year. Not that I didn't love what I saw in clips and pictures, but when the full film was on Youtube when I was in my teens, I neglected to watch it all the way, then it got taken down for a long while. There were other animated films and I didn't relish checking it out in separated clips. So, I knew a bit of what to expect, but boy, this whole film on the big screen was a greater feast for the eyes than any recent Pixar film I checked out. Does it have its problems? Yes, it's definitely narratively uneven, even rushed at times. I do wish some characters got more fleshed out and more time was given to the runtime, as a result. And I can 100% get the criticism of that climax resolution being a deus ex machina, even if I don't agree with it.

But, also, it's fucking The Secret of Nimh. Every frame here feels like it was downloaded from my mind, every sketchy bit of animated linework like it was distilled from my meaty head pulp. Its gothic and dark sci-fi aesthetics are unimpeachable to me, no other animated film comes close to approaching how much I viscerally crave their visual trappings. Say what you will about Bluth, and I certainly have my opinions about his stinkers, but even in them, the man and his team can draw up gorgeous, magical backgrounds and artistry. They're fascinating, lovingly animated and/or goddamn horny messes, bless them. You get a consistent grainy sort of texture in the linework, in the animation models themselves, that I can't help, but always adore with my eyes, hitting a sweet spot with me in this particular feature animation of his.

Even through the more childish trappings like Jeremy and the simplicity of the quest structure, how it balances those with its more heady themes always intrigues me further as an adult, like how we'll uplift our lesser animals before disregarding them, leaving them with the alienation and consequences of those experiments, and how the arrogance and selfishness of humanity manifests in our creations as a result. There's also bits of understated worldbuilding one catches better as an adult, like the fact that the non-Nimh associated female animals have no first names and are surname-defined by species (Auntie Shrew) or by male partner (Mrs. Brisby), suggesting a patriarchal ecological system. And, even before all that, the poignancy of a mother's quest to suck in her fears to protect and save her child from death only enriches with age.

None of this would hit as well, if not for the characters, even the supporting cast being animated to give them such fluid energy and expressive body language in the best of Bluth fashion. Most are dimensional enough in script to make the overall cast a cut above the typical animated fare, even the one-offs or the minor ones that appear in one scene or two. But the crown that completes the jewel of this production is the lead herself, Mrs. Brisby. She's easily one of the best, if not straight-up so, animated protagonists ever. Female leads weren't unknown back then, but mother leads? Almost unheard of, back then. And a huge part of that best status, what cements her place as such is that she's vulnerable throughout the movie. She's just a small mouse in a world full of giants and monsters, and she never fails to be scared at the vastness of the obstacles in her path. Yet, she doesn't whine, nor cower when the chips are down. By all accounts, her storied husband should've been the hero here, carrying out this mission to help cure his child... but he's gone, and Mrs. Brisby has to rise up to the occasion, stir up her courage to go on this sprawling quest, face down horrors and ancients again and again, all for her child. No one expected this of her, and she's always fearful every step of the way, but her conduct always reminds me of the GRRM quote, that being afraid "is the only time a man can be brave," which Mrs. Brisby demonstrates so much, with such earnest vulnerability.

The Secret of Nimh is a lot of things. It's a story about the vastness of the world as a little person in it through the perspective of a mouse, with horrors and monsters beyond your comprehension and understanding. It's a cautionary tale about human hubris towards nature and how our creations risk being condemned by the same flaws we ourselves succumb to. It's a three-way struggle between nature, science, and the unknown beyond our knowing grasp. It's a beautiful series of nature and grotesque sci-fi backgrounds and animation work, through some of the most expressive body language, facial emotions, and voice acting with talking animals, worthy of being Disney's creative challenge at the time, and especially now. It's a dreamy fairy tale narrative, where the hero must undertake a quest for a reward at the end, except this protagonist dwells in the shadow of the hero that should've been. Deep down, at its very beating heart, it's a mother journeying to the ends of her earth to protect and save her child, with fierce fear and clear courage. It's my favorite animated film.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 26/10/2024 (Bruno Mars & ROSÉ, Gracie Abrams, Morgan Wallen)

For a ninth week straight, Sabrina Carpenter holds onto the #1 on the UK Singles Chart with “Taste”. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, references to sex, violence, mental health (paranoia, suicide, abusive relationships)

Rundown

As always, we start our episode with the notable dropouts, those being tracks exiting the UK Top 75 – which is what I cover – after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid adieu to a fair few songs, it was a bit of a bloodbath even if I can see a lot of these making a return. We say our farewells to “KEEP UP” by Odetari, “Pretty Slowly” by Benson Boone, “You’re Gonna Go Far” by Noah Kahan, “Blame it on the Rain” by Milli Vanilli, “Free” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, “Angel of My Dreams” by JADE (more on her later), “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren, “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas, “Belong Together” by Mark Ambor, “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi and finally, “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay.

Much of the reason for our grand list of dropouts would not just be the amount of newer entries we have this week, which span from viral slow-burn deep cuts to sudden smash hits that missed even my periphery, but it should definitely be noted how many re-entries we have this week, though the circumstances for them are quite unfortunate. Former One Direction member and English singer and media personality in his own right, Liam Payne, has passed at 31, having jumped out of his hotel room in Argentina after what is likely a period of intense substance abuse. Payne had recently been in the news for allegations of his own, and his career had never reached the heights of his boy band fame or even his contemporaries, though this still struck a lot of people, especially on social media where TMZ posted images of his corpse. Classy. Payne’s death is the tragic by-product of an industry, a series of labels and plenty of executives disregarding the likely traumatic outcome of being thrown into pop stardom at a young age. There were so many moments in the careers of the 1D boys where it seemed evident that access points to support just weren’t there, or weren’t taken seriously because of the fact they were a famous boy band – you just cough it up, right? It’s the industry, it’s just “how it is”. Chappell Roan has recently highlighted how terrifying pop music can be as a performer, and with Payne passing, maybe there’ll be a second look towards those who could have gotten to him in the years before his death, and simply refused, restrained themselves on the grounds of their own financial bottom line. Preventive measures need to be in place, and whilst I doubt Liam Payne of all people should be the figurehead of mental health struggles in pop music because of his own problematic history and real lack of career growth, he should be a stark reminder that those you forget about in showbiz don’t just disappear… until they do.

Of course, this show is about the chart itself, and ultimately, another awful reminder of how pop music can put you through the wringer is present in our non-Payne re-entry at #69: “Careless Whisper” by the late George Michael. Recently reissued in celebration of its 40-year anniversary, the classic hit spent three weeks at #1 as Michael’s solo break from Wham! in 1984. Possibly the greatest treasure George Michael brought to the nation was preventing Black Lace’s novelty “Agadoo” from the top spot. Sarah Washington’s dance version reached #45 in 1993, and a UK garage rendition by 2 Play featuring Thomas Jules and Jucxi D took “Careless Whisper” to the top 40 once again in 2004 at #29. Just to date these songs, the #1s were the late Meat Loaf’s “I’ll Do Anything for Love” and Girls Aloud’s “I’ll Stand by You”, respectively. The original recording returned for a few weeks in 2017 following Michael’s passing, reaching #44, and it’s back for presumably one week, though a grimly potent one.

Otherwise, we have Liam Payne and One Direction making their returns: as for his solo hits, “For You”, a duet with Rita Ora from the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack is back at #43, near his most iconic track, “Strip that Down” featuring Quavo at #41, which I mostly remember for being co-written with Ed Sheeran and sounding like Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”. It originally peaked at #3 for two weeks in 2017 whilst “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber was, unsurprisingly, #1. “For You”, on the other hand, which is – quite scarily – new enough for me to have reviewed on its debut week back in 2018, peaked at #8 for two weeks that year, whilst Drake’s “God’s Plan” held onto #1. Oh, and when I say I would have reviewed it on its debut week, I mean would have. I searched, and this is the second episode ever, that I mistakenly deleted in its entirety and replaced with a note essentially saying “whoops!” soon after. I can’t lie and say I wouldn’t do that today.

As for One Direction, “What Makes You Beautiful” – which has spent nearly 80 weeks on the chart and was their debut single after their X Factor appearance – is back at #23. The now-iconic, mostly shit debut made the band parade in on first try to #1 on the UK Singles Chart, even if just for one week, and had appeared on the chart much lower but still regularly until as late as 2014. Our other returns from the boys are more sentimental: “Story of My Life” is back at #9, after peaking at #2 in 2013, blocked by Lily Allen’s cover of “Somewhere Only We Know”. My fun fact about this one is that Alvin and the Chipmunks have a cover that adapts their lyrics to be about their relationship with their owner Dave. Perhaps more importantly, however, it was co-written by all of the band members, a distinction it shares with its fellow ballad “Night Changes”, which resonates with fans partly because it is about accepting change that can come so soon and suddenly over the course of your life. I’m no Directioner by any means, but this is a beautiful, dare I say perfect song that has become their most-streamed just through sheer longevity, despite being far from their biggest smash at the time. It’s a slow burn that has the biggest star Harry on lead in the chorus, and ZAYN and Liam trading the first verse (ZAYN leaving after this single’s release), which really helps propel it – alongside the sentiment – to the top of the charts after Payne’s passing. It had a comparatively brief chart run compared to their other big hits in late 2014 and early 2015, only reaching #7 whilst “Uptown Funk!” was #1. There’s something really special about how when one component of the quintet is lost, the devoted fans, now mostly adults, have taken it just one spot higher to peak at #6 this week. Again, I’m no One Direction fan, I never had a connection with the boys like many would have, but this is the best song in the top 40 right now – a selfish part of me aches for a second run, but it’s unlikely it takes off past this week. It would be a beautiful moment though, for a song that in its chorus, defies that fear of change: even when everything you’ve ever wanted disappears at your wake, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Just look forward.

Oh, yeah, we also have notable gains, and you know, 74 other songs in the region I cover, though I could spend a great deal of time on “Night Changes”. However, we do see healthy boosts for “I Only Smoke When I Drink” by nimino at #57, “Bad Dreams” by Teddy Swims at #25, and that’s… actually it. This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart starts with “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams at #5, then we have a new entry from ROSÉ of BLACKPINK and Bruno Mars at #4 with their duet “APT.” which we will get to discussing later. Then it should be more familiar: “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars (again) at #3, “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez (who has her follow-up ready for next week) at #2 and of course, “Taste” at the top. So if we know how it tastes at the top, what about the bottom? I won’t say that again, new song review time.

New Entries

#75 – “Oscar Winning Tears.” – RAYE

Produced by Mike Sabath

This is the most recent viral sleeper hit from RAYE’s My 21st Century Blues, an album that had more longevity in moderate hits that backed up the smash of “Escapism.” long after that had left the charts. This serves as the first full song on the album after the introduction, or the overture on the live edition, setting out what seems to be the record’s primary narrative, at least in part, that of the constant manipulation of young women being taken advantage of by a manic and unjust music industry, that reflects upon the wider society enabling it. Whilst there aren’t many specifics – RAYE quickly dismisses his details as irrelevant since he’s just one of many men to have taken advantage of her – the track follows RAYE taking a seat and recognising his emotional outbursts in the ex-relationship as fake and full of lies, hence the name. There’s a cinematic showtune-esque approach to the rap-singing of the verses that ends up dipping in and out unevenly thanks to the mixing, but it still rests nicely into R&B, with a minimal shake-up of drums and piano that kicks its intensity up not through drastic changes but through stray details like a wanky guitar or a rattling hi-hat switch-up, eventually forming a mix that clouds up into nothingness. It doesn’t capture the swell it should, despite generally playing into its melodrama, and hence has the stop-start momentum that may fit its content but stilts its potential. There’s a confidence and empowerment to this track that decays on later, more jaded songs, and whilst it may be a good fit for RAYE, it doesn’t have the same touching vulnerability that bases some of her more powerful cuts in reality and adds a heartfelt backlining. It’s a good introduction, but as a single, it falters in really painting a complete picture.

#61 – “Piece of My Heart” – Wizkid and Brent Faiyaz

Produced by P2J, Dpat, Juice Cuice and Drew80HD

It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve seen either of these acts, but the Nigerian singer who helped propel modern Afrobeats into his current global success has teamed up with one of the most influential newer alt-R&B acts for a new duet fusing their styles. We probably wouldn’t have the hits we do without them, especially this year, so there’s a strangeness to seeing the two debut so low, though of course influence and inspiration don’t always translate chart-wise. What I also wouldn’t have expected was how ambitious this track ended up being, with Faiyaz being the main star in my opinion, as he effortlessly blends different vocal inflections and alterations into a slippery Afrobeats rhythm with uniquely hissy and busy drums, sounding really organic under and over the tropical guitars and sliding keys in that first beat. This is the cleanest Wizkid’s vocal mix has… ever sounded, really, and he frames himself as the sweatier, sexual intimacy to Faiyaz’s loving platitudes that importantly give this woman ownership of some of his heart, but restraining letting her have too much. It plays out in the song as a cheesy “I just won’t have enough for myself” one-liner but speaks to the empty, pitch-shifted promises of the intro and Wizkid sounding desperate in his quieter, stifled delivery once the hypothetical of him potentially hurting her come into play. Of course, you could, fantastically, ignore all of that and jam to how gorgeous this sounds as a piece of music, with an immaculate breeze of a mix forming from what should end up at least slightly too busy and chaotic.

With the beat switch into the chipmunk vocal on its second half, subtitled “Sometimes”, we get not just the other side of that loving character, but a grovelling acknowledgement of their flaws. That simple chorus really does get to the crux of it: “Sometimes, I might be a bad version of me”. Wizkid even attempts to link back and reminisce on the intimacy we heard over the first beat that has been subtly diluted with a shakier, frailer arrangement, to no avail before the tape stops. I’m not used to this level of narrative storytelling from Wizkid, especially not in the context of how seamlessly the production forms around it, and although Faiyaz may be the more significant performer here, it intrigues me more into how an upcoming album could shape up if this is the approach he’s going with. I’m kind of taken aback by this lead single, I am really fascinated to where he goes next, even if it may not chart anytime soon. He may have a new fan on his hands here.

#52 – “Fantasy” – JADE

Produced by Mike Sabath

Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix continues to work for solo success, with this being her third attempt after “Angel of My Dreams” was not overly impressive but a resounding success critically and commercially, though its follow-up failed to really climb up the ladder the same way, with “Fantasy” potentially suffering the same fate given its low debut. Is it worth the potential climb up though? Well, despite sharing the producer, it fails to echo either the immediacy or the core clash at the heart of that solo debut single, and whilst JADE is still bringing much more personality than any of the half-formed Little Mix solo singles recently, this borderline pride anthem feels a bit lost. The glittery disco synths meander until they combine into a flavourless dressing, interrupting with obnoxious woozy stabs any actual bassy impact and momentum those verses embracing kinks and freedom could be. Madonna’s Erotica – an unabashed EDM-pop embracing of queer sexuality – is one of my favourite albums of all time and whilst it can be abrupt, cheesy or indistinct, it always knows where it’s going and refuses to chug along into a full, greatly-produced but ultimately aimless mess of keys and stray ideas. I genuinely do not know why JADE or producer Mike Sabath would allow the lead to be so easily drowned out by the production, which then absorbs a wave of tropical-adjacent nu-disco elements that really overfill the mix, rendering it gross in the way that perhaps wasn’t intended. I’m all for over-the-top campness, but the message is quite literally lost in the breathy performance and playful structure, alongside the feathery soundscape. It feels like it’s taking too many detours – or, never really having the punch or strength to its hooks in the first place – before being able to deliver that confidence, rendering it much less impactful, more like a sugary syrup that resembled some form of liberation or resistance prior to manufacturing. On first listen, I just thought this was okay but it might actually be a more detrimental and unfortunate reading of its subject matter than it has any idea how to grapple with. This could be something, it clearly wants to be, but it fumbles far before the point of that potential being heard, let alone fulfilled.

#50 – “Noid” – Tyler, the Creator

Produced by Tyler, the Creator

It’s that season again – and by that, I could of course mean Halloween and the spooky season but I mostly mean the season in which California rapper Tyler, the Creator, after staying relatively quiet for a year or two, announces a project, a new identity or character to play within the persona of for that record’s promotion – if not the project itself – and within a few weeks, he’ll have dropped a few promotional videos and eventually, a full album, mostly self-produced and with exciting hidden features… that’s on Monday, however. Once again, Tyler has eschewed convention by refusing to release on the crowded Friday and instead delaying his album until the Monday, hence the debut for a mid-week single that feeds into the Halloweeny times by focusing on paranoia.

This album’s protagonist, Saint Chroma of CHROMAKOPIA, constantly feels like, for lack of a phrase that doesn’t paraphrase a seasonal one-hit wonder, somebody’s watching him. The music video depicts visions of violence and fear that may not be real but find themselves justified in the lyrics, stretching this fictional personality back to Tyler’s reality where he can draw parallels in between the home invasions still plaguing the friends he grew up with, to the paparazzi’s focus on his 2023 purchase of a million-dollar mansion, in terms of how that can both eat at you and isolate you. Los Angeles’ celebrity culture and his familiarity with the city leads Chroma, or Tyler, to not feel understood in his conflict, with the sarcastic hook expressing envy for those who can just enjoy the small pleasure of watching, feeling, enjoying the simplicities of life. Tyler, however, feels bombarded by the inhuman: cameras, satellites, screenshots – when screens are pushed in front of you and your extensive purchases are news, that same systemic oppression from living in an unsafe neighbourhood returns in a way that may not put you in immediate danger, but reassures how insignificant and statistical you are in the spotlight, with the beat switch segmenting the two sides of life as much as it branches the two together.

Sonically, I mean, it’s Tyler, it’s lengthy and detailed, finding even more ways to develop his typically fuzzy and complete sound into the specific energy he wishes to operate within for a particular album cycle. Zambian psychedelic rock samples texture the first half, with Tyler displaying his barer, flawed singing voice without the coating IGOR granted it, though the “runnin’” he’s been doing for years in his music and the immense vocal layers from his catalogue but particularly that album remain, with WILLOW and Tyler’s separate multi-tracked choirs constantly attacked by that sample of Paul Ngozi reflecting a similar mania in his own native language – crossing those barriers feels particularly potent for a song that’s really about homes. Hell, Tyler’s mother even appears on the interlude threatening to beat up anyone who messes with her son, whose frail, pitch-shifted vocals that follow her defiant words emphasise how much we owe to our households. I love how the second half extends its intensity on pure tedium with Tyler’s nasal drawling out of the “e” sound in “me” over real, but low-fidelity claps. As for the full release on Monday, I’ll be excited to see how powerfully this hits within that context as something so dense as this can be difficult to sift through as a single, and Tyler has definitely polarised audiences with his leads before a critically adored album to follow, so my ears are peeled. Tyler’s releases always feel like an incredibly well-planned and momentous event, where even if I don’t love the album as much as his last, I can respect the growth, and such a complicated song from such a complicated artist definitely deserves a look from the bigger picture. Hell, that may just be the point of his attitude towards fame since at least CHERRY BOMB in 2015. Nearly a decade later, I’m excited to see how his approach has changed.

#40 – “Love Somebody” – Morgan Wallen

Produced by Joey Moi and Charlie Handsome

US country star Morgan Wallen loves to drop these teaser singles so that those who don’t follow his every move never really know when a full new album is coming… until we see 30 tracks hog up the Hot 100 and we know just what has occurred. Regardless of the bloated albums and honestly being much less interesting each new song I hear, I have liked his songs before so there could be something here to enjoy. Shamefully, there isn’t, as this is about as country as a shirtless guy in a flag-branded cowboy hat going around a city as a novelty cowboy who can barely play “Wonderwall” and puts on a silly accent for foreign tourists. There’s almost a morbid appeal to how blankly Morgan Wallen’s singing and melodies “fit” over the chintzy guitars mixed into a synthy pop rock pastiche even AOR radio programmers in 1987 might see as outside of their remit. Morgan’s lyrics, however, are about finding that honest girl he can take back to the sticks, instead of some opportunist using him for the parties and fame, seeing if he can snatch some of his wealth. I’m not sure yet if when writing this kind of bitter, hapless lament about inauthentic women who leave him to dry once absorbing the parts of him that matter to her… he may just be writing about himself, if he’s even writing it at all. Next.

#19 – “That’s So True” – Gracie Abrams

Produced by Aaron Dessner, Gracie Abrams and Julian Bunetta

Gracie Abrams has recently popped up with the deluxe edition of her breakout record, The Secret of Us, which distantly eyed up a second week at #1, a spot currently taken by Kylie Minogue who unfortunately had no new entries this week. Instead, we have what singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams has left on the cutting room floor which, given my disdain for her overly-sanitised and overthought brand of folk-pop, could honestly be a good thing if I wanted something rawer or more compelling. Unfortunately, even the B-sides grow through the machine, and though Abrams embraces her obnoxious immaturity through the writing, much like the promising “Risk”, this doesn’t have the youthful panic, trading it for a stomp-rock chorus that, much like that Morgan Wallen song, borders on kind of embarrassing, especially when it leads into the most brow-raising description of sex I think I have heard outside of rap on the charts. The acoustic rumble is really not that bad, but it’s so stiff in its programming and even its structure, fixated on repeating that annoying “oo-oo-oo” sound with little variation, and all of the muddy swell it accumulates itself in the bridge with the distorted, irritating drums, ends up all for nought when the song refuses to free itself from the shackles of its claustrophobic percussion and inconclusive chorus. One could argue that this absolutely fits the awkward post-breakup teenage drama… but at least when O-Rod did it, it was fun, there were much more unique details than this sexless column of cliché, and most importantly, Olivia Rodrigo is an actor first, and those dramatics, those stakes are palpable in her performance. This song refuses to expand itself beyond petty bullshit even towards its abrupt end, wasting everyone’s time in the process.

#4 – “APT.” – ROSÉ and Bruno Mars

Produced by Bruno Mars, Cirkut, Omer Fedi and Rogét Chahayed

It seems like the BLACKPINK girls are here to stay as solo acts and whilst so far they have definitely gathered much traction in that first week then filtered off slightly, their quest for western pop success that could really last seems to have been solved… by Bruno Mars. I’m genuinely surprised he’s maintained his career well enough to sell these top 10 duets, and perhaps a relative newcomer like ROSÉ makes a bit less sense for him to play off on, but he’s surrounded by certified pop songwriters and producers here too, so a part of me definitely anticipated for a watered-down personality… which is not at all what we got here. In fact, it’s a bratty rush of teenage lovestruck energy that dismisses anything but the “now” in its buzzy, new-rave brashness, not too far from say, The Ting Tings, in its presentation that could be seen as obnoxious if not for its content, all about a drinking game and that immediate lust to be around someone you love. An incredibly percussive track, it balances Bruno’s breathy ad-libs, with a simple cheerleader chant of a beat ripped straight from Toni Basil’s “Mickey”, itself from “Kitty” but that’s another story, that gradually fuses with the guitar-based melodic elements of the track to form something really euphoric. That pre-chorus is such a sticky melody and the verses are so manically repetitive you almost don’t notice Bruno is singing or rapping some phrases in Korean. It almost functions as a bait-and-switch even, with the K-pop structure naturally having you expect incredibly distinct and disparate parts being separated via abrupt transitions and cloyed together as a “song” by an undeniable chorus. Instead, the third cheerleader chant chorus carries on the swell of the pre-chorus effortlessly into a confrontational bridge pairing a soaring guitar lick with stuttering Bruno blips panning across ROSÉ’s reverb-drenched promises that she’s on her way. It may not actually go anywhere, but it settles for the temporary euphoria, the togetherness, in such a cute and for me, unexpected way that I can’t help but find this frankly adorable. It may sour on me with time but for now, I recommend it and I’d love to see this borderline punk track be the BLACKPINK-derived track that ends up lasting.

Conclusion

Definitely a fascinating and diverse week that gave me way too much to discuss, overwhelmingly so, but not one that led me to a breadth of quality like last time, more just intriguing nuances that opened these songs up a lot. Except Morgan Wallen, of course. Gracie Abrams gets Worst of the Week for “That’s So True”, which shouldn’t be a surprise, maybe I really am getting too old for this, but Mr. Wallen swoops up the Dishonourable Mention just as easily for “Love Somebody”, JADE’s safe this week. As for the best, I am a bit of a fangirl, I apologise, there is going to be an inherent bias, but I do think “Noid” is a brilliant, multi-layered song so Tyler snatches Best of the Week, with a delightfully surprised Honourable Mention towards “Piece of My Heart” by Wizkid and Brent Faiyaz, which is honestly a very similar track in scope, form and even some smaller details like vocal effects; weird coincidence.

As for what’s on the horizon, we may see Halsey and Tyler battle it out on the albums chart alongside Megan, Tears for Fears and Bastille, but how much of that will actually translate to the hit parade is unclear. It may be more worth betting on Lady Gaga’s proper comeback single and whatever “Addison Rae” is up to, but time will tell. For now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Ka, and I’ll see you next week!

[smokin-symbiotes]

October Movie Review #10

'Martyrs' (2008) - Dir. Pascal Laugier

Summary: A woman seeks revenge on her childhood abductors with the help of her close friend. However, their roaring rampage of revenge leads them to stumble upon a bigger mystery.

CONTENT WARNING: 'Martyrs' contains scenes of intense torture, suicide, and refrences to fascism. These scenes will be discussed in this review. Reader discretion is advised. Very heavy spoilers ahead.

Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. ‘Martyrs’ is two great movies truncated and sewn together, making one okay film.

Introduction 

The reputation of ‘Martyrs’ greatly precedes itself. Frequently appearing in top 100 lists of horror movies and top ten lists of most disturbing movies ever made, the movie promises a nearly two-hour nightmare of grit, torture and terror.

The opening scene is particularly gripping, and cuts into you like a knife. A filthy, malnourished girl flees from captivity in an industrial zone. She is bloody, barefoot, stumbling. She screams and cries, hoping for someone, anyone, to save her. It’s evocative. It’s terrifyingly real. It hooks you in from the jump.  

Story A 

And for the first half, the movie delivers on this promise. It’s a stomach-churning portrait of where revenge takes you, how your mind rationalizes your worst impulses, how your mind manifests guilt before you, the limits of your empathy.  

The young victim, Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï), was tortured physically in her youth but has deep psychological scars: her revenge is motivated by a desire to quell her inner demons and reach catharsis. This “demon” manifests into something literal, a ghoulish woman that stalks and harms her through her whole life. While she does achieve her revenge on her abductor… she annihilates their entire family, too, which includes their two teenage children—and it doesn’t stop the monster. 

Meanwhile, her best friend, Anna (Morjana Alaoui), is doing her best to support Lucie. They grew up together in an orphanage, and Lucie is the only one that she trusts. She understands Lucie completely, but the death of the innocent family members and the looming possibility of her abductor being misidentified hangs over her head. She has romantic feelings for Lucie, though this is left relatively unexplored—Lucie doesn’t seem to be in the space to reciprocate these feelings. 

So, we have a lot going on. The trauma the two leads need to process, the question of the abductor being misidentified, the mystery behind Lucie’s kidnapping, and a possible romance between the two. All of this should take us to the end of the film, whether our leads ride off into the sunset, made whole again, or their investigation damns them to madness and death. 

Except that doesn’t happen. That movie resolves itself in the first 50 minutes. For the next 50 minutes, we’re watching an entirely different movie. 

Story B 

All of those plot points are resolved: the abductor was not misidentified. Why did they do it? They are in a cult that tortures young women to the point where they receive visions of the afterlife: the cult wants to know what these martyrs see. The romance is doomed, as upon achieving catharsis, Lucie commits suicide. Anna is left at the mercy of the cult, and molded into the next “martyr.” 

The pivot is pretty jarring. The movie runs at a pretty brisk pace for the first half, with all of these plot points piling on top of each other, escalating the story to new heights. Then we hit a brick wall. We are told by the cult leader, the mademoiselle (Catherine Bégin), why they do what they do rather matter-of-factly. Anna is tortured for the remainder of the film, and it’s as slow, distressing, and painful as you would expect. 

Part of me understands the pivot. The first half is the meat and potatoes of intrigue and violence, the next half is your veggies: philosophical musings about whether or not pain and suffering serves a higher purpose, and what death is really like. You want to take something that seems grindhouse-y and flip it into something intellectually stimulating. 

The problem is, for me at least, I thought the first half was far more fascinating. It served as character study for our two leads, putting them in a gripping mystery and a moral quandary. The second half, while throwing a couple interesting questions, is answered succinctly in the end, and lacks the chemistry between Anna and Lucie to carry it. Anna is left as a blank slate to be tortured. Lucie is dead.

Evil old fucks 

Alright, so these evil old fucks, the cult: they’re basically a hodgepodge of capitalists, fascists, religious zealots, and other movers and shakers in the 1%. They’re associated with fascist imagery in particular: they run industrial torture dungeons; they dress in all black. Their victims, for all intents and purposes, look like those who were liberated from concentration camps at the end of the World War II. The prisoners in the film and in the historical camps serve the same purpose: they are abused, tortured, and killed to serve the interests of the elite in society. There is a marked difference, the cult’s victims are seen as potential heralds, while the Nazis' victims were seen as subhuman. Still, they were tortured and killed all the same. 

Don't forget, this movie is set in France and its writer and director is French. Part of France, the Roman Catholic Vichy France, was allied with the Nazis in World War II: France was also completley occupied by Germany for a time. On some level, this movie is grappling with these ghosts, made manifest in the cult.

So, that’s a heavy thing for a movie to run with, right? This cult of quasi-relegious goose-steppers want to turn women into messianic martyrs so they can have total understanding of death: by extension, they will have the answers to life and the human condition. They will use their knowledge to curry influence and favor, and become the enlightened despots of modernity: everyone will finally have a place in their grand, total design. It’s a neat concept: but we got to wrap this movie up in 40 minutes.  

Suffering

Shortly after they are introduced, Anna is tortured in a lengthy series of scenes. She now undergoes the same suffering as Lucie went through. However, she manages to make it farther into the program than any other martyr before her. How does she do this? She achieves enlightenment. How does she do ‘that’? Well... she just kind of does. Anna either imagines a conversation with Lucie, or contacts her beyond the grave: Lucie tells her that she got over her fears by finally “letting [herself] go.” Anna then just kind of... endures the rest of the torture from there in a catatonic state. 

Don’t get it twisted, it’s harrowing, distressing stuff. But all the character stuff we had goes out the window in the second half. There’s very little dialogue, and it’s just Anna being victimized. I can't stress this point enough: it's just Anna being tortured for the rest of the movie. I could imagine this movie as a chamber film, with Anna having imagined conversations with Lucie about the nature of suffering, transcending suffering in kind of a Buddhist way—but we don’t get that. The movie is over in 20 minutes, you see. 

Upon Anna being flayed alive (yes, you read that correctly) and receiving visions from the afterlife, she relays her knowledge to the mademoiselle. The mademoiselle calls in the rest of her cult members to the compound where Anna is tortured, to make the big announcement... but either to make a dramatic statement about their mission, or in a profound change of heart, the mademoiselle commits suicide by gunshot. Her final order to her lieutenant is to tell the guests to keep doubting about the afterlife. 

A bad joke 

In all honesty, the lead-up to the climax feels like a bad joke: 

Set-up: “What visions of the afterlife did the tortured woman have?"

Punchline: “Whatever it was, it wasn't worth it.” 

Indeed, the ultimate message of the movie is that, inflicting torture and suffering cannot be used to achieve enlightenment or progress. If the answer to their mission had been worth it, the mademoiselle would have shared the message. The final answer was such a letdown, (the afterlife is either; completely mundane; a total existential nightmare; or is just oblivion) that all the time, effort, and bodies were just not worth it. True progress can’t be built on a bunch of flayed, starved corpses. 

In conclusion 

I like the message. In fact, I like both halves of the movie just fine. But this is a case where the parts are actually greater than the sum. Both halves could have been their own movies, but instead they were forced together, like a bad skin graft or mismatched pieces of fabric. 

'Martyrs’ reputation as a disturbing movie is well earned, sure—but only on a surface level. After a certain point, the violence and torture stops to mean anything because Anna just becomes a puppet for the remaining plot. Maybe that’s commentary on the dehumanizing effects on torture, but our lack of insight into her and the cult makes the overall experience unsatisfying from a narrative standpoint. What I extrapolated is, in my opinion, pretty surface level. I don’t think it runs much deeper, though I could be mistaken. 

All of this is to say: making movies is hard, especially horror movies. Horror movie writers have to walk a tightrope, juggling narrative conventions, character writing, character motivations, shocking deaths, and whatever anxieties that compelled them to write the screenplay in the first place. I think, for this movie, it just lost sight of itself. It was a gripping, revenge fueled psych/sadistic horror movie in the first half, before pivoting into a sadistic, supernatural-tinged philosophical treatise. Both concepts are fine. I just don’t think they got along together. 

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

I've gone on a nostalgia trip. Slipknot used to be pretty special. The original idea in the mid to late 90s was pretty fucking mint. The idea of 9 top musicians bringing all kinds of ideas and genres to the table mixed with dark, dark stuff. The antics back then were genuinely fucked. The crow in the jar, the relentless vomiting lol the intense fighting on stage and with the crowd, the broken bones, clown's eye literally falling out, being set on fire, Sid was treat as a gimp, like an actual gimp. All done in shit jumpsuits and home made masks. It was great lol

I remember when clowns jumpsuit was literally smeared in giant brown shit stains lol cos he shit himself on stage and made others eat it which got him beaten up

I mean those were the days lol

Hopefully the antics stopped there and there's not gonna be a load of accusations about em in the pipeline

But anyway, they peaked in 1999 with their multiple extremely violent UK tours. I think they did 3 tours all in small or small ish venues, and it was pure carnage. At the time it was like 'we're only gonna do one album, then it's over' and you wouldn't have thought they'd have lived to write another however many albums

But then it becomes your job, mortgages, kids, and the lack of pensions in rock n roll mean they keep going

I don't want to come across as "they were better in my day" - what I mean is bands rarely achieve something special. It's fleeting, and the wild west capitalism of the music industry back then ruined bands and relationships.

I never saw em on those tours, I saw em in 2003 when they all hated each other and the drug addictions were embedded. The vomiting, violence and life changing injuries had all but ended lol. But there was a window were it was mint.

For me tattered and torn and scissors are what slipknot are all about. A mix of everything.

[rosegadyn]

Finally watched the OG Texas Chainsaw Massacre about a week back. It's a fascinating piece of film history that manages to actually still hold up to the audience of the far flung future of 2023(49 years!). Nowhere near as bloody or visually upsetting as its reputation suggests, there's A LOT about it that has had the teeth filed down across the decades since its release because us disgusting little plebeians have only become more depraved in our seeking of cinema-spawned delights. The average Netflix series has more gore than this film does, but none of what those series' do sticks with you the way the implied violence in this movie does, and that is because time has still not managed to dull the core soul of what made this movie a classic - an oppressive, nihilistic atmosphere that never relents creates a version of this movie that lives only inside of your head. This is married to a concept that, when taken in the context of the time period and culture that it released in, is one of those pieces that so cleverly and powerfully holds a mirror to the pieces of history that birthed it. A scathing retort of America's treatment of its veterans, of confused youths returning to a home they had long abandoned, only to find it filled with strangers who do not understand them and will only ever be hostile. Of the advancements of technology and of society at large being built upon mountains of the dead, human and otherwise. Of the terrible things we try to cover up. That humanity is, no matter how far we say we've come, still naught but a beast powered by primal hunger. Power tools are pretty scary. Normal horror movie stuff, basically With all of the things that this movie directly inspired, it still manages to have its own identity past all of the homages, parodies and other pop culture references. The most surprising part was honestly the soundtrack, and really made me understand that this film's influence is genuinely worldwide - Akira Yamaoka's passion for the intense industrial-horror work on the Silent Hill series can be found here, and I'd put dollars to donuts he's said somewhere that this movie is the reason It makes it absolutely clear why this was a huge shot in the arm for the Slasher genre and how it pretty much single-handedly made it a staple genre for the next 15-20 years, directly influencing young directors who would themselves go on to become very well known themselves ie. Wes Craven, Ridley Scott

[benicebefunny]

I'm just...Roy yelled at the top of his lungs at a bunch of children, and it's treated as a cute quirk. Yes, of course the context is different with Nate drawing attention to a specific player rather than general yelling and getting super personal, and I obviously do not support yelling at employees, but something about the way people laugh at Roy shouting and breaking things for no reason, Isaac throwing stuff, all the players making life difficult for hotel employees and apparently stealing stuff despite being loaded athletes, Sassy harassing a waiter, Roy discouraging Phoebe from cursing but being proud of her elbowing a girl in the neck as if that's somehow better, etc. while jumping on every negative action by Nate - notably not white, rich, or "traditionally masculine" - as a sign of him being fundamentally bad leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. Nate stands out so much as the only non-rich, non-white character that gets to show real depth and interesting flaws. He's so much fun to watch! But the way people are all "I never liked him", or "I feel vindicated", or wishing violence on him makes it seem like they were looking for an excuse not to like him, and feels so much like the old "people are bullied for a reason, if they're weird, they have it coming".

Like you, I have so much fun watching and (as everyone is painfully aware of by now) talking about Nathan, because he has real depth and interesting flaws. For me, I really enjoy connecting how his actions, feelings, and beliefs connect (or conflict) with the show's broader context. Also, he's funny, quirky, and delightful.

So, yeah, it's frustrating when people flatten him into a Ticking Timebomb of Evil, or the Antithesis of Ted's (presumed) Goodness, or AFC Richmond's Designated Patient.

But it's also kind of sad when people flatten other characters into harmless, lovable comedic caricatures. That's what happens when Nathan's misdeeds are taken seriously, and those of other characters are brushed off as just a joke or an inevitable facet of the football industry. Why would people do that to their faves? Can't they see all the fun I'm having picking apart Nathan's storyline? (*touches earpiece* What's that? My intensity and occasional glibness can come off as barely suppressed rage? Not again!)

There can be some pretty gross subtext to why and how characters are excused from accountability. For example, Colin and Isaac's harassment of Nathan is sometimes excused because it happened Before Coach Lasso (BC, for short). While Nathan's verbal abuse of Will and Colin is framed as worse than literal daily physical assault because it occurred After Arrival of Dad Figure Ted (AD, for short). Ted is positioned as a White Savior who brings enlightenment to the masses, forgiving past sins for all who Believe. And Colin and Isaac are positioned as spiritually immature, ignorant children rather than adults savvy enough to exploit the fucked-up power dynamics of their industry. (You know, like Nathan in S2, but with regular beatings.)

(To be fair to fandom, the White Savior Ted and his Infantilized Himbos trope didn't burst fully formed from our collective fannish head. Canonically, Ted does encourage this kind of thinking. He refers to the players (grown adult men, a significant number of whom are Black) as "boys." He uses the father figure thing a lot. And he did convince them to burn a cherished possession in order to appease spirits he doesn't entirely believe in. A little bit of cult leader behavior there. More things to add to the This Would be Taken Seriously if It Were Nathan pile.)

My point is: it's a double-edged sword. As someone who enjoys the non-Nathan characters, I don't like it when their actions are stripped of their ethical, social, and financial weight. I read it as an insult, a diminishing of the characters.

[chaos0pikachu]

I am one of those people who didn’t care for SU in that I never bothered watching the show b/c I don’t watch much kids animation. Nothing against it, I had plenty of colleagues who work in kids and adult animation (pray for them they strugglin right now) and have nothing but respect for their hard work. Kids cartoons are just not something I find myself interested and less so when you know how the sausage is made and who gets access to even making these shows. 

The inside stuff I know about Voltron - also a historically awful fandom where it’s strides and behind the scenes struggles are overshadowed by said awful discourse driven fandom - is actually pretty fucking depressing. Knowing some base things I know distantly about kids animation and the studios that produce these shows is pretty depressing. 

What people tend not to understand is art is not created in some creative freedom vacuum. Everything is always, always, always subject to profit interests by the company that owns the IP. Especially in today’s world of streaming platform wars, studios, publishers, etc are really tight about their IP, their branding, their profits. 

I’ve never watched SU so I’m unaware of the context, but I remember seeing discourse about Steven not killing an antagonist character. Which I thought was a pretty bonkers thing to be upset about in a children’s cartoon show. It’s pretty known in the industry that you don’t have your protagonist kill another character. Violence has to be limited, any deaths need to be off screen and implied - at most - you can see this small shift in Legend of Korra (which was always aimed at an older audience that something like SU) when it moved to Disney XD and streaming online. And even then “death” was still happening off screen and only implied. 

This is often b/c studios don’t want to get dinged by parent groups, or cable watchdogs who rate their shows, or advertisers who want to advertise x, y, z kids product and they can’t do that if your hero is killing other characters! 

Art, at least mainstream art, is not created in a vacuum. It is always, always, always beholden to corporate interests. If it can be sold, it can be controlled, subjected to censorship, changes, reformulated, repackaged, and repurposed. 

There’s people, millionaires and billionaires who have their fingers dipped into the tides of various media who can make a quick call and go “actually, I think this gay couple should be a straight couple instead” and the people making the thing? The showrunners, or writers, or animators? Will do that. Because they have to. Because they do not own the thing more often than not. 

Some might ask, well then why did THIS show get to do THIS then? Well that comes down to intension, marketing, merch, studio, and timing. Legend of Korra was released in 2012 to 2014, Steven Universe from 2013 to 2019 (with a film in 2020), Voltron was 2016 to 2018, She-Ra was 2018 to 2020, and Owl House was 2019 to 2023 (it’s on it’s last season currently). The strides made in terms of time is really important here. But also the political climate as well. 

There’s a lot of factors that go into a shows direction, it’s not all just the showrunners - unless their people with proven track records of bringing in ratings, talent, critical acclaim and profit like the Shonda Rhimes or Ryan Murphys of the TV world, or the James Cameron’s and Christopher Nolan’s of the film world - it’s producers and studio execs who have say as well. Harvey Weinstein was notorious for being meddling in film productions that he felt invested in. 

Anyway this got away from me TLDR: most people in fandom don’t know how media is created, and how beholden (most) creators are to their investors/studios/producers who are always, always always, interested in profit over creativity. 

I don't care if people enjoy Steven Universe.

I care that Steven Universe was subject to aggressively homophobic censorship, which is a genuine fucking social justice issue, and nobody cares because as long as something is "cringey" it's free-game to be homophobic toward, apparently.

There existed a children's television show that got cancelled over its inclusion of a lesbian wedding, and instead of being remembered as a victim of homophobic censorship, or as a historical milestone that allowed the production of other queer shows like She-Ra and The Owl House, it gets remembered as nothing but a bad discourse generating fandom.

And that really fucking chaps my ass as someone who studies queer media.

[papyrus-please-one-chance-please]

I'm making my own undertale au I can't take this anymore fuck! This is gonna be a long rambling post and it probably won't make any sense I'm sorry. Also NSFW.

So we know underlust we all hate that story right? Good now forget about it because I'm making my own slutty little au that isn't fucking weird. (Yeah I'm stealing that creep's au what of it) It's gonna be called LVtale (love tale/levels of violence tale/level tale. or wtvr).

The story is after Chara and Asriel died Asgore became very bitter, which started rubbing off on the general monster population and it became shameful to show positive emotions. After a while it became basically illegal because the royal guard would actually target anyone who shows positive emotions. The sex work industry became popular since it was the only way to show positive emotion that wasn't frowned upon.

I know everyone is here for the characters so here you go.

Sans (Rose) is a bartender at Grillby's club. He's demiromantic gay, asexual, and gender apathetic with he/she pronouns.

Papyrus (Lavender/Lav) is in the royal guard. He's gay, polyamorous, and a trans man with he/him pronouns.

Asgore is a recluse that nobody has seen in ages, only getting word from him through Undyne. He can be wtvr sexuality and gender you want.

Undyne is the head of the royal guard and the only person allowed to talk to Asgore because she's not actually talking to him, he's dead. She's a lesbian but she's not looking to date rn, she's way too stressed, and she uses she/her pronouns.

Grillby is Sans's boss. He made his club because he wanted to make a place where people could escape from the overall awfulness of the underground. He's aroace and uses any pronouns.

Alphys has shut herself away in her lab, her experiments have gotten more and more intense. She's bisexual and uses she/her pronouns.

Mettaton has been shut down by Alphys.

Toriel is unaware of the way the underground outside the ruins has become. She acts pretty much exactly like classic Toriel. She is bisexual and uses she/her.

Chara lived until they were 19. They tried to help the monsters escape the underground but became very depressed over time eventually leading them to eat the buttercups and die. They're a lesbian and use they/them pronouns.

Asriel died shortly after Chara, basically the same way he did in undertale. Now as Flowey he stays in one spot, protecting Chara's grave. He's aroace and uses he/they pronouns

Frisk is the same as in classic undertale. A flavor of queer and they/them pronouns.

The human souls vary in age because I think having them be a more diverse age range is more interesting so here you go. Perseverance- lesbian she/her. 18. Clover/justice- pansexual they/them. 25. Patience- unsure they/she. 13. Kindness- gay he/they. 16. Integrity- aroace they/them. 8. Bravery- lesbian he/she. 40.

Idfk if that's all the characters but I'm writing this in a frenzy because isbshsuaiaoaknan

[chilopodacrudus]

Who do you Want to Be? Chapter 3: I Met Someone Today.

CW: Graphic depictions of violence; cannibalism, cults, (extremely NON romanticized) physical and verbal abuse, major character death, death, blood and torture.

Allison: Allison led Piers down a long cement floored hallway. Checking every so often behind her to see what Piers is up to. He scared her but he was new; he was fresh, he hadn’t gotten the gist of things yet and she had some vague twisted hope that he would be able to help her. She was desperate at this point; possibly just as desperate as Piers was. Piers politely stopped several times as Allison tripped on the high heels she was wearing and the long skirt; cursing to herself and muttering an apology afterwards. They finally make it to the kitchen and Allison steps to the side to let him in. “Well uh...I’ll...see you at dinner.” She goes to walk away but is stopped by Piers carefully putting his hand along her shoulder.

Piers: “Wait; why don’t you stay.” His intense blue eyes looked her up and down trying to get a read. Nervousness; anyone would have been after what they’d just witnessed sure but he had several assumptions that he wanted answered. “I don’t bite.” He joked with her playfully as he gingerly laid down the body on the large metal prep table. Eyeing the knives and kitchen tools set up. It was a large kitchen like one you’d see at a large scale restaurant. Distinctive areas for butchering and meal prep separated by a large clear vinyl screen. He pulled the corpse from the bag and laid him down; sweetly placing his hand along his chest with a smile. “I wonder who he was…” He ticked his eyes back towards Allison who stiffly stood as far away as she was allowed. “Do you know?”

Allison: Her eyes wide she swallowed; taking a step back and again tripping on her skirt. “AH I HATE…” She held her hand up calming herself; she hated wearing skirts, hated wearing heels hated most stereotypical ‘feminine’ things in general but she didn’t voice such things. “No I…I didn’t know...him..” Her spine shivered; Piers was...different than the others. She picked up that he seemed to at least have some corrupted form of ‘empathy’ so maybe she was in luck after all. “I don’t know anything about...any of them...to be honest.” She never watched them prepare the bodies; Johnny didn’t either to be fair but she flinched as Piers took off his gloves, replacing them with a pair specifically for preparing meat and took his pick of tools. Her eyes ticked to the large gash along Piers' jawline then quickly looked away , unsure if she should note it. "that wounds pretty deep...by the way I can...fix it.

Piers: He spoke in a disappointed tone. “That’s a shame...I really would have liked to know him.” His attention then moving to the wound on his face as he touched it with his fingers and laughed shaking his head. "Sure thank you very much...but after the meal please." Going quiet for a moment as he went through the motions of a butcher just like this man was any other piece of meat; though there was a sense of respect about it. Cutting into the man’s stomach; he grabbed a gut hook to hollow him out speaking quietly as he did so. “Life is precious Allison.” He moved the body to the large industrial sink after the guts were removed; liver and heart set to the side which made Allison flinch. “I’m sure you know that but...I have always wondered…” He caught her gaze as he rinsed out the body thoroughly. “How do other people like me see the ones who’s lives they take? I’ve watched a lot of documentaries on the subject...but I haven’t really...clicked...with many of them. I’ve always wanted to meet someone like you; someone like the rest of your community here. So pardon all of my questions as they come up.”

Allison: She stood up straight with a sickening feeling in her guts from the ‘people like you’ statement. At least he didn’t see through her yet; at least she didn’t think so but Piers was being particularly hard to pinpoint for her right now. She needed to clear her head. “I think that’s very...kind...of you Piers. That you...see them as people.” She didn’t want to say too much; she had a feeling Piers wasn’t going to like it here, she could already feel the arguments in her ears. “Um…” She spoke softly and then forced a smile but before she could say anything else Piers turned to face her as he flayed the skin from the man in front of her.

Piers: “You remind me of my first; Allison.”

Allison: She didn’t like what she inferred from that.

Piers: “Her name was Ava; I love her dearly, til the day I die. Long...black silky hair just like yours; she was the nervous sort like you as well though...I can’t blame you for being nervous right now. Maybe you aren’t always so jittery.” He turned and poked the tip of his tongue out at her teasingly and went back to his work; he cut several thin slices from the belly meat of the man until he was satisfied he had enough for a large gathering, then carried them over to a metal pan, placing the heart and liver on it as well. He walked past Allison to the kitchen; pushing past the acrylic screen. “I’ll need some help from you in here; please.”

Allison: Try as she might she had no words; all of the color seemed to escape from her body as she listened to Piers rattle on but she did follow his orders, she was used to that at least. Standing awkwardly beside of Piers; still keeping her distance until he moved closer and smiled down at her.

Piers: “What did the cook usually make? Anything in particular?” He changed his gloves and looked through the cabinets trying to find spices but didn’t come up with much; quirking a brow but he did gather what he could, just nothing to his satisfaction. “Nothing with much flavor then huh?” He joked with her; noticing the pure ghostly white look on her face, his expression calmed and he looked at her lovingly. “Allison I’m not going to hurt you...we’re one in the same aren’t we? Not on the same SIDE mind you...I don’t see this as...taking sides.” He folded together a flurry of whatever spices he could find and coated the slices of stomach with them. Thinly slicing the liver and setting it off to the side; he wanted to impress these people, he’s not even sure why himself. The heart stayed worryingly raw but he did, at least wash it out. “No there’s no ‘sides’ in this; people are people and every single one deserves the best end they can get, which is why I’m going to turn this man into the best he can be.”

Allison: She scrunched her face and shook her head then awkwardly laughed; she couldn’t do much else, she was in awe of this man, she had no idea what to think of him. “Oh yes uh...nothing too fancy...nothing fancy at all but...you seem to be...knowledgeable at least. I um...I’m sorry I’ve just had a long day today uh...these...events are always a bit stressful you know...getting everything together. I’m not myself today...thank you for being so courteous Piers.” She bowed her head to him and looked away.

Piers: A smile on his face he finally looked away from her and started cooking; putting the heart straight into a pressure cooker and frying the stomach slices, the liver was fixed last, he didn’t have many tools at his disposal here so he fried that as well. Lamenting on the state of the kitchen but after he was done; he was at least somewhat satisfied. “Who is Johnny to you?”

Allison: She had been sitting in a chair waiting for him to finish; jumping up startled when she heard his voice again. “He’s my….” She thought to herself ‘captor’ ‘worst nightmare’ and blurted out. “Boyfriend.”

Piers: That’s all he needed to know on the matter; he didn’t take Johnny to be a very Kind person so he figures his assumption was correct. “I see. Well...I’m all finished up then; let’s get this to the guests.” He pulled out large white plates from the shelves and plated his work; placing it all on a large serving tray and hoisted it up after taking his gloves off and washing his hands. “Shall we?” He nodded to her.

Allison: She flicked her eyes to the meal in horror; she hated these nights, for obvious reasons, even if it looked more ‘edible’ than usual, it was still a nightmare to her. “Right..” She hastily made her way down the hall to the banquet hall. About a dozen guests sitting around the table; including Johnny and the scared man who has definitely not calmed down at all.

Johnny: He had a half mask on; the rest of the guests did too Piers noted, Johnny handed Allison her own designated mask before she took a seat near him as Johnny sat at the head of the table. He clapped his hands ushering everyone else to clap along with him. “Our new chef everyone; based on the smell you’re already hired Piers. Can’t be real choosy with chefs in our situation, you’re a blessing from the heavens friend.”

Piers: He sat the food down in the middle of the table; bowed his head and took a seat, he wasn’t immune to flattery but he was hesitant to accept it from Johnny. Flattery can be dangerous. “What can I say...it was fate.”

Johnny: He laughed and nodded to everyone in the room; every guest took out a small knife and pulled up their clothing, Piers saw that every guest had a number of short deep cuts lining their stomachs, he found this peculiar but he said nothing to question it. “May God look kindly down upon this blessing; amen.” An Amen from the rest of the table followed him as each guest cut one more time into their own flesh. Piers wasn’t big on religion but he didn’t make this known, he was sure this God they were referring to wasn’t exactly the one he was forcefully raised with so he tried not to think about it.

Piers: He bowed his head in time and passed around the plated food to everyone at the table; keeping himself from making a ‘Good God let’s eat’ joke but it was difficult. “I hope everyone enjoys it; if I’m to do this...’full time’...I’m going to need to go grocery shopping.”

Johnny: He was busy stuffing his face full of the food; it wasn’t the most flavorful thing that Piers has ever made but it was a large cry from what Johnny was used to. “You do whatever you need; I’ll fund it. Give me a list and I’ll send out Allison; anything at all Piers anything at all.”

Allison: She had to blend in; she had to, so she ate the flesh as well, much less enthusiastically than everyone else at the table but...she was trying. “Yes I can help.”

Piers: He shook his head and held his hand up. “I’ll do it myself; I can do my own shopping.” He smiled at Allison who quickly turned her head away.

Johnny: “Hey...Alli’s here to help aren’t you Alli...but yea I get it some of you cooks are a little particular but….Alli can help you with WHATEVER you need.”

Piers: He wanted to frown but didn’t; there was a sinister tone to that that he didn’t like the sound of but he nodded and smiled at Johnny wordlessly. He had a strong urge to learn more about Allison but he didn’t want Johnny involved in that; he decided.

[mywifeleftme]

20: Sunk Heaven // THE FVCKHEAѪTED LVNG

THE FVCKHEAѪTED LVNG Sunk Heaven 2021, American Dream (Bandcamp)

Sometimes I pick up an LP at a show as a token of appreciation to the artist for a memorable set, even if I’m not convinced their shtick will translate well to record. That’s how I ended up with a copy of THE FVCKHEAѪTED LVNG. Sunk Heaven’s Austin Sley Julian cuts a striking figure: he stalks the darkened stage holding a candle in one hand and a blade-like instrument of his own devising in the other that emits bludgeoning waves of feedback as he twirls it. Eyes bulging and rimmed with fucked up mascara, he howls animalistically into a headset mic and makes intense eye-contact with audience members as choreographed strobe effects pulsate behind him.

This show will likely either sound like hell on earth to you, or a little intriguing. I found its discomfiting nature, theatrical panache, and sheer walloping violence inspiring, and I was happy to plunk down some extra cash as a thank you for it. Upon actually picking up the record I’d bought, I had some misgivings: Linkin Park typefaces and nu-metal aesthetics are not something I really needed to come back, and as titles go, THE FVCKHEAѪTED LVNG is a bit on the nose that has been driven through the back of the skull by the boot with too many buckles on it. So, it went on the shelf for six months or so till I finally decided to give it a few spins here today.

I’m pleasantly surprised to report that this is pretty good ambient/noise/industrial. A lot of Sunk Heaven’s compositional nuance is lost live due to the deafening volume he performs at. It’s a better-than-fair trade for the sheer force volume lends his performance, but the record reveals more diversity and structure than I’d guessed. The songs clank along like a newborn T-800 learning to walk, swathed in layers of glitchy samples and electrical buzz. The overall vibe is actually pretty chill. I’ll break this record out again when I need a soundtrack for something that requires both stillness and sustained tweaky intensity, like drilling a hole through a desk with a protractor.

20/365