#an absolute explosion of pop music tropes

[abominable-space-they]

Another Au centered around music & punk Steve(sorta) bc of Steddie twt talking abt switching it up to celebrity Steve & just some guy Eddie.

I do love a good trope reversal

Underground Metal Eddie x (pop)punk Steve

Eddie working at a guitar shop that mostly catered to metal & hard rock musicians with a preference for a certain crunchy sound.

Since he was into a very specific niche of gay power & thrash metal, Eddie didn't know Steve was a pop punk star when they meet

He knew who Stevie Dynamite was, of course he did, everyone did. He knew that the guy debuted at 15, was supposed to be some musical genius who could play any instrument.

Eddie remembered the early songs because they were so personal, haunting little folk proto punk songs w/ a glam pop edge about identity, isolation, & loneliness. They weren't his thing but they were better then the usual radio fare.

Three years later after a series of salacious magazine spreads, notoriously explosive deals with several different make-up and high end hair care lines, more scandals then you could count, public partying, public meltdowns, cancelled shows, article after article abt the King of Pop Rock losing his touch, a mediocre album full of bubble gum party till you drop songs, and open speculation abt the nature of his relationship with indie pop darling Birdie (but Eddie knows that's not what ppl think it is. Her music is wall to wall barely subtle sapphic yearning, if there's one thing he knows it's gay subtext)

The rumors got louder & more dramatic until, five years after he rocketed to superstardom Stevie Dynamite publicly sued his label & parents for control of his image & brand.

He won

Then he quietly disappeared.

Thus was the end of the bigger then life legend of Stevie Dynamite

So when Steve Harrington walked into the guitar store on some lazy Monday afternoon while Eddie was sitting behind the counter working on a song in his downtime. He had no idea who Steve was.

When the unknown hot guy in a Violent Femmes hoodie & a plain black beanie struck up a conversation about Eddie's lyrics he thought Steve was just another life long grind musician wanting to talk shop

When the guy introduced himself as Steve, Eddie didn't think anything in particular about it

When Steve seemed to be flirting a little Eddie chalked it up to the guy wanting a discount on whatever he was in to buy.

When he dragged Stevie Dynamite viscously for being an absolute fake from top to bottom, when one of his newer songs came on the shop radio, Eddie laughed and agreed.

When Steve asked Eddie for help choosing a guitar with a very particular pensive but angry victorious sound he was happy to help (Steve paid full price & if he was annoyed he didn't show it)

When the guy came in again next monday for a new amp, and the Monday after that for new strings Eddie was confused but happy to see him

When Steve came in the Monday after that asking for help with the writing of a song, a service he would be happy to pay for, Eddie said yes against his better judgement. He knew he was well and truly fucked by the happy burbling in his stomach at the thought of creating music with this incredibly hot man.

When they spent six months of Mondays holed up in the break room working on lyrics, Eddie tried not to examine what it meant.

And when Steve abruptly didn't come by one Monday, Eddie had no idea what the hell happened but he was disappointed.

When one Monday no show, became two, then three, Eddie decided he must've been ghosted, he picked his embarrassingly broken heart up off the floor and kept going, resigned to never knowing what happened with Steve.

In fact Eddie had no idea that Steve Harrington was Stevie Dynamite until the first royalty check came in with a $ number so high, Eddie thought he probably died without realizing it. He'd never even dreamed of holding that much money in his hand at one time.

The check was from Dynamite Records?!?!?! Stevie Dynamite's personal label?!?!

Through a haze Eddie remembered that a a few weeks ago Stevie Dynamite had released his first post corporate divorce album to a tidal wave of media fanfare and critical acclaim. Everyone who had an opinion about music swore the real Stevie Dynamite was back on top again. Eddie barely noticed it, he'd been to busy not caring that Steve ghosted him to pay attention to yet another meaningless corporate shill telling him to dance all night

He called the corporate number on the check

"Dynamite Records, Jonathan Byers speaking, how may I help you?"

"uhh yeah man, I think there's been some sort of mix up. I uhh-, Look my name is Eddie Munson & as much as I would love to keep this check. It couldn't possibly be for me and I really don't want to get sent to prison for check fraud so maybe someone should come and get it or something."

The man, on the either end of the line immediately relaxed into a more casual manner.

"Eddie hey man, I've heard so much about you. It's definitely not a mistake, he wanted you to have credit since you guys wrote the songs together."

"uhh not to seem totally clueless or whatever Mr Byers, but umm He who?"

"Jonathan is actually totally fine, we're all family here right? Stevie Dynamite of course"

"Ok, but how in the world does Stevie Dynamite know me & why would he want me to get writing royalties on his new songs?"

"... Fuck...He still hasn't told you has he?"

"told me what?"

Jonathan sighed a kindly exasperated sigh on the other end of the line.

"Eddie have you looked at the new Stevie Dynamite album?"

"No-, I uhh no offense or anything it's just glam rock pop punk isn't really my thing."

"it's fine, it's not mine either-, hmm well are you at work? No of course you are that's where we sent the check. He didn't know your home address. You know, I should've known he didn't tell you now that I think about it. Why don't you go take a peek, pay specifical attention to the dedication. I'll wait here."

Eddie heard some rustling as Jonathan leaned back, talking to someone else apparently.

"Argyle, babe, you wouldn't believe this. He still hasn't told Eddie."

Even further away he heard a good natured huff of laughter.

"Bro? No shit. Man... Babe, your ex is so beautifully weird. I wish I found out a pop star was in love with me w/ a fat check and an album full of love songs. Stevie boy has style at least... wanna hit this?"

What the hell was that all about? If they were getting high he might as well just go look at the album right? Right. No time like the present.

Eddie didn't know why he was so nervous

The album cover wasn't anything remarkable, tattoo flash art of a nail bat, a weird flower full of serrated teeth, and a guitar. It was called "Stevie Dynamite: Love, Death, and a Baseball Bat Named Baby"

Inside there was a lot of concept photography, Stevie Dynamite after a show, make-up smeared, staring into a mirror with empty eyes. Each page of lyrics had a new picture of Stevie with some of the glamorous accoutrements removed staring at himself in the mirror, first he took off his shiny rock and roll lace top, then he replaced his leather pants with sweats, the next he had on an old beat up violent femmes hoodie, lastly he took off all the flashy metallic glam rock make up.

The last picture was just Stevie Dynamite, No, Steve Harrington, his Steve Harrington fresh faced, staring into the camera with a note superimposed, written in loopy feminine handwriting, the dedication.

'To Eddie who's inspired me since the day I met him, who never gave a damn about Stevie Dynamite'a fame or reputation, who was kind to me because that's just who he is.

To Eddie who helped me find my love of music again, reminded me why I was here in the first place, and helped me write the most sincere and meaningful songs I ever have.

To the Eddie I was so afraid of losing to the gossip machine I couldn't quite tell the truth.

All those dumb love songs that you were always teasing me about writing were for you Eddie. No matter what, you deserve to know that. I'm sorry, I hope you can forgive me.

I love you,

Stevie Dynamite

(but you can still call me Steve if you want to)'

Eddie felt faint again. He picked the phone back up

"What the fuck Jonathan?"

"Yeah, man what the fuck. But that's our boy Stevie, passionate, loyal to death and back, more than a little impulsive, and terrified of his feelings. Once he decides he loves you, he's impossible to shake. I'm so sorry he sprang this on you like this man, but Argyle's almost done getting him ready. I'll send him your way when we're done ok?"

Eddie wasn't sure what he was agreeing to but he still agreed.

20 minutes later a leather clad pop rock god, slouched in, looked around from behind his dark sunglasses with disinterested affected distance, pushed those sunglasses up onto his head and magically transmogrified into Steve Harrington, the guy he'd been pining over for a month. They both sat in silence, each afraid to go first. Finally Steve cleared his throat and broke the oppressive quiet

"I'm sorry I stopped coming by, I was so afraid that once you knew you'd only see Stevie, not me anymore. I couldn't bear losing another person I loved to him. God he sucks."

"But... you're Stevie Dynamite right? I haven't hallucinated all this, right?

"No no, you definitely didn't. I mean, yeah technically I'm him, but he's still the worst. I kinda hate him"

"uhhh...."

"I know it's weird"

"No I get it-, I think,-, trapped in reputations of our own making and all-, but uhhh... You love me?"

"Yeah Eddie of course! How could I do anything else but love you? Didn't you listen to the album?"

"uhh-, well-, No? Glam Rock Pop Punk just isn't my thing"

To Eddie's surprise, Steve broke out in a radiant smile.

"Of course you didn't, what was I thinking? All that worry for nothing. I'm so-... Hey I'm about to go play a private vip show to celebrate the album's success, you want to come? I promise I'll explain everything-, No pressure though!"

Eddie still wasn't sure exactly what he was agreeing to, but couldn't even feel to bad about it when Steve blushed, radiant, bigger then life, like a rock god, as he pulled Eddie out the door.

Right then and there Eddie made a pact with himself to keep saying yes to Steve as long as Steve bothered to ask. He was to precious not to.

[joemuggs]

Albums of 2023 part 4

RIGHT where were we? Continuing from part 3... Let's get through this before January is out shall we? Last stretch... Listening to this 10/10 LP I realised that the only real peer Kristin Hersh has is J Mascis: always different but always the same, always tapped into the eternal flow of weird, sad, America, always writing, playing and singing brilliantly year-in-year-out.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭you can hear Ryuichi Sakamoto breathing on this 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Talking of always different always the same, Slowdive were built to age gracefully weren't they? Even so, though, it's pretty startling how they continue to do work right up there with their very best all these years later. Proper safety blanket of an LP this.

In a golden age for soul/R&B, Mahalia is royalty. She just keeps growing as an artist and this is easily her best album yet - perfectly hits that sweet spot between R&B, neo-soul and pop and just sounds *classic* from head to toe. World class.

I would watch the absolute shit out of the Tarkovskyan meditation on scale and emptiness that this amazing instrumental album by Vince Clarke would be the soundtrack for. The void staring back at you! ⚫️👀⚫️

Kerfuffle aside, Róisín was firing on all cylinders here. This doesn't have the deadly focus of Róisín Machine (what could?) - rather, like Hairless Toys and Take Her up to Monto, it takes time to unpack - but it's a sprawling wonderland of a record, brilliantly structured, and a fine addition to her immense discography. Interviewed her (pre kerfuffle) for the Substack...

It baffles me how consistently Loraine James is able to sonically express complex emotions that don't have names - and how she's able to use all the tropes of "cerebral" music, but smash the ivory tower and make it feel like it has purpose out in the world and is just a natural way to communicate.

Before, on her EPs, Yaeji built her tunes on house, hip hop or other recognisable grooves - but on her debut album, it's an explosion of everything. The confidence to transcend the myriad influences and create something so pop, so weird, and so singular is incredible.

Here's a weird one I only just came across as the year was ending. Mary Lovett, straight outta Norfolk, makes more unique, grown-up electropop: but this is mystical, insinuating, mischievous and very peculiar indeed. Feels like a subversive cabaret of the mind.

While we're on peculiar, grown-up, mystical Norfolk electropop - ah ok maybe more gothy postpunk with a bit of rave thrown in - Maria Uzor smashed it out the park with this. Makes me want to do really jerky interpretive dance in a room full of misfits - and made us want to shoot/interview her for the Substack!

Another artist who just grows with each release - Nabihah Iqbal hit new levels here. It's so deluxe, so poetic, so morning after the rave, really tapped into deep historical streams of New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Slowdive and co, but resolutely not retro...

I have listened to this Yazmin Lacey record SO MANY TIMES, it's just vibes upon vibes upon vibes, also I keep playing fantasy football with dream remixers for each song, also she radiated charisma and wit on stage at We Out Here. A star.

Amazing voice, amazing poetry, witty af ("dickhead blues!") yet stab you in the heart serious, ancient yet modern, lo-fi yet lavish, INCREDIBLE arrangements, absolutely staggering stuff from Kara Jackson.

This is both a deep, literate, endlessly fascinating songwriter LP that you can pore over endlessly, and taps into the very purest essences of house music - what more could you want? Interesting political / environmental / regional backstory too. AMCA absolutely rule.

In a year of phoned-in, arbitrarily-sequenced rap albums, CasIsDead's Famous Last Words stood out like a skinned thumb: this is an A-L-B-U-M album - with narrative, leitmotifs, a view on life that's the definition of "unflinching", gorgeous music, wordplay for days, and a finale that'll make your heart fall out... just stunning.

Almost forgot this was 2023 as Tuulikki gave me the LP at a festival in Oct 2022 - and I’ve had it on rotation ever since including in DJ sets. Modernist folk-classical composition for accordion +++ - really special and gets under your skin.

In a year riddled with great grown-up electropop / dance pop albums, Hifi Sean and David McAlmont were kings. This is what bittersweet accumulated life experience sounds like and it's WONDERFUL. Proud to have interviewed them both - Sean here / David here - for the Substack about it, and both were amazing value.

TWO stunning meditative records from Beirut coming up, both epitomes of Soft Music for Hard Times. First Mayssa Jallad on the new Six Of Swords label with an amazing dark but weightless singer-songwriter album - imagine a Lebanese Windy & Carl? A real experience of taking a step into someone else's dream record, this.

And then puppeteer (!!) Yara Asmar with mostly instrumental soundscapes which like the Jallad album exist in an isolationist dream space and are impossibly sad and lovely with glimmers of forlorn hope, laments for a broken world etc etc, just wonderful stuff. Also the THIRD appearance for Brighton's Hive Mind label in this list.

Another very grown up record! Ever-thoughtful Scrimshire was clearly in brooding mode in the studio, lots of darkness to this - but it's gorgeous too, and you know what, it's up there with Yussef Dayes as far as UK jazz versatility and ambition goes!

AND FINALLY!!!! 32 minutes of - yes - PURE PLEASURE. So so good, and so needed in bleak times, to hear Janelle Monae cutting loose with total fun and confidence like this, I just LOVE it.

That's it... 95 records. All have given me joy in the last year, and I hope some of them do you too.

[thesunicarusfellfor]

THE FUCKIN YANDERE GODS OMFG AWOOGA YOU DID SUCH A GOOD JOB THE FIC IS GOOD AS HELL!!!!

Is there any chance youd write a part 2 in the future? Its absolutely cool if you dont want to but WOW this concept? Solid gold (no pun intended)

I honestly love how people reacted to this story. It was so fun to write and became my most popular story to date. I'm such a sucker for the gods and mortals forbidden romance trope is just chefs kiss. Also, puns are always intended. Hand em over.

This chapter doesn't really involve the reader much, it's kinda more of a filler but I want this story to become a series, which means shorter chapters to separate the story. This is just simply a lore filler chapter.

TW: Mention of amnesia, memories being altered

Send me a message via inbox if you wanna be added to a general or series tag list. Make sure to turn off anon, please.

Mortal of Gold (Yandere!C!Techno x GN!Shy!Reader x Yandere!C!Philza) Part 2

It was quiet, for once, but there was a soft wind blowing through the curtain-covered doorway that prevented most light from seeping through. Two figures stood in the other corner of the room, staring into the bronze bowl filled with liquid, watching the destruction they caused spread across the village of L'Manberg with darkened eyes narrowed into glares.

"They deserved it..." Philza murmured, likely to Chat who was resting on his striped hat, giving the odd little squawk or chirp every so often. He gave a sigh and popped a piece of bread he tore off into his mouth, giving a small piece to his whining bird afterwards.

"I don't think the mortals have ever seen you lash out at them in person... Usually, you just send your crows to destroy their crops when they annoy you." Techno chuckled softly as he stole a piece of bread from Philza which caused him to give an annoyed scoff and bat his hand away, "But-"

"YOU SUMMONED 10 WITHERS?" A voice boomed through the palace, causing Phil and Techno to sigh and back away from the dish displaying their destruction proudly, "AND KIDNAPPED A MORTAL?"

The blond rubbed his face and Techno took off his glasses while they both walked out the door. Walking down the polished quartz stairs, the two gods quickly came into eye contact with the source of the voice, as well as a few other visitors.

"You're just mad because we tried to kill your high priest, XD, don't pretend like you follow the rules either." Technoblade sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose before putting his glasses back on, "And the mortal is none of your concern. We just did something about it, unlike you fawning from a distance over your mushroom boy."

Despite the cracked mask covering the god's face, everyone around him knew he was irked from Techno's statement. The three other gods behind him snickered into their hands until DreamXD snapped his head in their direction, the thin golden ring halos around his head gained a red glow to them.

The two brunets behind him immediately snapped their mouths shut, but the blond kept snickering away to himself, causing him to get smacked upside the head by one of XD's floating hands before he turned and stormed out the door.

"Ow! Bloody dickhead!" The blond groaned and rubbed the side of his head. The God of Mischief and Determination, Tommyinnit, scowled in the direction of the maniacal god before turning back to his father and Techno, "Ay Dad. Didn't take you for the destructive type! I hear you pulled a Techno and wiped out a village with Withers!"

"Yeah! The explosions shook the entire Upperlands!" Tubbo, the God of Bees and Chess, cheered a bit as his bee buzzed around him, getting specs of pollen in his fluffy hair and decorating his small horns.

Chuckling to himself, the God of Music and Insanity looked behind him at the sandy ground covered in a faint black fog, "XD was throwin' a tantrum. It was honestly the funniest thing to watch," Wilbur adjusted with the guitar on his back, "So where's the little mortal you kidnapped?"

"They're under a sleeping spell at the moment while the amnesia spell sets in," Phil gave each of his sons a brief hug as a greeting, "Then we'll have to alter their memory so they don't panic, but they'll have to stay up here permanently, their mind could be shattered if they do return to the mortal world."

"Shattered?" Tommy repeated, reeling back slightly as Wilbur summoned a leather book in his hand, opening it and scanning through the words, "That sounds like a pretty violent backlash..."

Phil and Techno avoided Wilbur's suspicious glare as subtly as possible, pretending not to see it, "Well... Remember, they're a mortal. Plus the strain of their home being destroyed, getting robbed, then getting kidnapped by gods and being brought to the Upperlands... Who wouldn't go absolutely mental? Then if they see the remains of their old village, it could undo all the magic that was placed upon them."

"Makes sense to me!" Tubbo chirped, his small goat ears wiggling as he held Chat in his hands, "Can we at least see them now and visit them when they wake up?"

Techno tensed up a bit but realized quickly that two of the three of the gods visiting them were too young to consider dating, and the third one was married to a human that he was trying to turn into a merling. "I... Suppose so. Just don't be too loud or the spell will break."

Tommy rolled his eyes dramatically, but the feathers behind his ears ruffled slightly to give away his excitement. Although, he was much better at hiding it than Chat, Tubbo's bee TC (Twitch Chat if you're wondering), and Tubbo, despite the fact that Chat actively visited (Y/n). Wilbur didn't seem to care much, but there was a hint of curiosity in his eyes. Or that was his insanity kicking in.

The avian nodded and began leading his biological and adopted sons through Techno's palace, Chat chirping away in his mind. 'Gods, that bird doesn't shut up...' Phil rolled his eyes up to the sky for a moment before smiling a bit to himself, 'Better than everything being dead silent I suppose...'

"In here. Now shut up. The spell won't work twice in a row." Techno hissed quietly before moving aside the crimson satin curtains to allow his old friend's sons into his rarely touched bedroom. The quartz room was kept dark via similarly coloured curtains blocking the majority of the light from coming into the room, while still allowing enough so they could see. A canopy bed stood proudly in the center of the room with golden posts and pure white chiffon silk curtains swaying lightly with the blowing winds.

Phil and Techno couldn't help but smile softly to themselves at the thought of seeing you again, even if you were asleep and, at the moment, void of memories and personality. Techno led the way inside and gently hooked his fingers around the fabric and moved it aside to let the younger gods see the mortal they had saved from the cruelties of the Earth.

The three gods carefully took their time studying you, trying to find what had their father and the anarchist totally entranced. Their eyes carefully took the time to study your soft (h/l) (h/c) hair, your beautiful (s/t) skin, and your silk robes that were ombre from red to white, accented with the very golden accessories that the high priest had tried to steal. (They used magic to put you in the new outfit. They're yanderes not creeps.)

"Oh... They truly are stunning. Are you sure they're a mortal?" Tubbo frowned for a moment, straightening up and pulling Chat away from your motionless figure so the crow would stop trying to peck at your jewellery.

"What do you mean?" Wilbur frowned at the younger god, his adopted brother. This had also caught the attention of the other gods

"I mean... Don't think they're a mortal, or at least they weren't born one..."

[mowu-moment]

i feel controversial & i care too much, so here's my des rocs complete tierlist

ranked list & reasoning (ish) under the cut

1. WAYNE: hoholy shit wayne. can hardly put into words how explosive this one is to me. the intro sets a Whole Mood before swiftly (& cleanly) smacking it down into an Absolute Banger and i don't use the term lightly. very hard not to scream along with it. only detriment is that wayne the person is kinda an ass in the mmc video but that's no qualm

2. POS: basically the same thing as wayne (oh both have great lyrics btw, this one more so), only gets points knocked for being 2 minutes long and having 30 seconds of that being intro & outro. go danny give us nothing

3. WHY WHY WHY: there's a theme among my top picks--they're all hard-hitting w/ killer guitar. the lyrics are absolute batshit in a good way, but the chorus is a lil flat & i feel like in general it just needed a touch more spice to score the top spot. or maybe it's just seniority & it'll have a coup a few months out idk

4. DEAD RINGER: similar killer guitar & lyrics but this one is Groovy as Hell. don't particularly like his singing in this one & it's too repetitive if i'm feeling grumpy but there's something so magic about after the bridge. top 10 songs to twirl a flag to

5. NOTHING PERSONAL: the minute long outro irks me & it's a little bit empty but plays into that well. groovy, great lyrics, the Sexiest Guitar Solo of the lot, the screaming's a minus but it does have an emotion there. not entirely sure what one but it's there.

6. LET ME LIVE / LET ME DIE: his first time being all over the goddamn place, history was made. amazing guitar, a little worse lyrics than 1-4 i'll admit, the intro Slays me both in a good and bad way. must be a joy to play live where he can just drag out that intro & bridge as long as feels right. at least i liked it in the digital concert like that. would actually kill me in a physical concert, imagine how much stomping gets going to that beat. bonus points for presumable cowbell

7. PIECES: for once not this high for the guitar & lyrics, they're both kinda basic. idk what's about this one but it just takes me to a separate dimension & i love it so much for that. really fills those earholes. also a bit of personal meaning, heard it for the first time on the day we moved into the house i'm currently split-custody-living in (is that tmi?) & the first music video of his i saw. man i love some spaghetti on the wall

8. SLO: basically the same as dead ringer, but knocked points for a kinda lame outro & the subject matter being a little less interesting to me. still lovely.

9. HANGING BY A THREAD: not my normal fare really & the way that the ends of the verses don't really fit in the pacing of them is bleh, but it's just so reminiscent of the songs my brother puts on whenever we hang out together that it just makes me all warm & fuzzy. it's also nicely put together which is something i'll have to start saying for. the later list.

10. SUICIDE ROMANTICS: this is where i start griping about head voice & higher pitches in general. don't like em so the pre-chorus is a lil annoying. also not my normal fare but it's tender & the ending is awe-striking. imo better live where he's loud on that last line before the final chorus. not enough to bump it up though. shoutouts to love and a smoking gun, i still am dying to hear that one

11. THE PAST HAS PASSED AWAY: my favorite lyrics out of the first 2 ep's. only thing wrong with it really is the bridge getting kinda repetitive. love that last chorus heehoo. same schpeel as the Banger Category

12. MMC: this one's lower than the rest of the Bangers for being pop punk which is something the radio has made me dislike, i guess. that trope with the guitar in the second half of the chorus just kills me so much. improves greatly during & after the bridge, love that lil ragtime piano. generally the same bit as before but i do love him doing something un-romance-related. yeah fuck the establishment!

13. THE DEVIL INSIDE: reminds me A Lot of the electronic-ish cassettes i've got from the early 90's but that's just me. this one will probably move up as i get more used to it, but only a little bit. the first part of the second verse makes me like. genuinely uncomfy? but the second part of it's fantastic. ending's ass though what happened to the instrumence. bonus points for using 'reverie' that's an SAT word (maybe). good singing but returning to the gripe at higher pitches, just a little bit though

14. THIS IS OUR LIFE: feels shockingly generic for a des rocs song tbh but there's nothing really wrong with that. adore the bridge. singing's alright. kinda miffed that he doesn't pronounce the 'f' in the second 'life' in the chorus, but it makes sense here. that sort of thing won't later so i'm bringing it up now. guitar's nothing spectacular but fits nicely into the song, probably one of the most cohesive of his (especially in recent history).

15. OUTTA MY MIND: really lives in the same space as slo and dead ringer do in my head (most likely the 'songs to twirl a flag to' zone), but this is by far the worst of the three for when i'm grumpy. just. Very repetitive. back to great lyrics here but it's kinda hard to pick them out (i've heard the song at least 100 times by now & i'm still missing a few lines). still groovin'

16. RUBY WITH THE SHARPEST LIES: what the fuck actually goes on in this song by the way? not the premise or whatever it's just. so all over the place. the verses are incredible but bringing in another vocalist just for one line kills me. bridge is really cool but that one part i don't remember where it is, the one that alternates basically nothing & an Electronic Piano Chord blaring at ya? ruins it. partially anyhow. also can someone tell the people on genius that it's 'carved it in my skin' not 'crawled down in my skin'

17. GIVE ME THE NIGHT: same repetitive issue as outta my mind but it's not groovy enough to save it, shame. feels like a trial run of all the wackshit stuff he's been doing recently, with the additional vocal bits at the end & the kinda weird lyrics. it still has a place in my heart don't get me wrong but it's just fallen in favor of stuff that Commits to banger or batshit (or actually pulls off both strongly, yyy). oh yeah nice guitar alright singing etc etc

18. USED TO THE DARKNESS: similar story to give me the night. i love it i do, but it's just lackluster nowadays. also remember that under-pronunciation thing i brought up in this is our life? this is where that comes back. rampant i tell you! that second verse he just doesn't finish the words & i hate it!

19. DON'T HURT ME: i honestly don't know why this one isn't in D. the chorus bit where he just cuts it short is irksome. the lyrics aren't anything special. i don't know what i like about it. but i can tell it does exactly what it set out to do if that makes sense. respect, respect. and using missile in an analogy, he's getting creative with the vocab

20. LIVING PROOF: kinda got a vendetta against this one i think? i don't know why i hate this one but i do. it's just kinda, blah. like the perfect sort of thing to nightcore up. sentiment's lovely & i do love the lyrics even if they aren't impressive but like. it bores me to an extent

21. TICK (LIVE): separating the version i heard in the digital concert just to give it some credit, this one was actually kinda nice. another one with a nice sentiment & what he was going for is great. no clue what the second part of the second verse has to do with any of this though. and it also begins our final group, the songs that just feel empty. like there's not nearly enough going on. this one's alright though i was just hoping the studio version would add some flair. you can see where that one is though.

22. IMAGINARY FRIENDS: also got a vendetta against pop. kinda hate the sentiment here (contrast!), the chorus just falls short of what the verses prime me for, head voice is rampant, and yet i still swing along to it. it's infectious props to him. love the outro though, monkey laugh and all.

23. MAYBE, I: another empty one, like it's a four-note progression what is that. love his singing in it, and the chorus parts do round it out, but like. eh? it doesn't even give me much to say.

24. BORN TO LOSE: another flop on the chorus! too smooth i say! and i absolutely Despise the pitch-shifting thing going on. not something i was expecting him to express so points there, lyrics are nothing fancy to my Literary Mind though. initially good singing but the chorus he's just sloppy over it. the instrumental is lovely but the vocals just throw it so hard into the bin which is a right shame. fuck that outro too i hate that gimmick

25. I KNOW: here's where the bad batshit comes in. singing is some of his worst imo, does the other-vocalist thing for that bridge, genre i'm not fond of, just a soup of Stuff I Don't Like. not one i'd kill someone over putting as #1 like i can see where it comes from but. mmmmmhhhh bad. cover does NOT help his case.

26. HVY MTL DRMR: empirically i should put this one higher. but the chorus flops so goddamn hard it deserves to be in the bottom of the barrel. the verses are lovely for what he was doing back then! but then just... nothing!

27. RABBIT HOLE: i was so excited for this name but it's just sad boi hours playlist curated by some corporation you hate. probably the most nothing of them all, genuinely where are the instruments. what happened. was this one just shoehorned in as the final track just to pump numbers up. and i swear he had some autotune or something which only makes his voice worse it's fantastic naturally. also that's not what a rabbit hole is! that's not the idiom! a rabbit hole is when you go on a wikipedia spiral from jennifer lopez to group theory! not when you just have a shitty night's sleep or whatever this is! i'm not just miffed i'm downright annoyed

28. TICK (STUDIO): what the fuck happened des. how did you release this. it sounds like a 3rd grader singing for the school talent show it's so out of rhythm. singing's honestly kinda bad & the instrumental has the same problems i talked about in the live version. the last chorus is fine, i guess, but no i don't forgive him for what he did to tick.

[floggingink]

OH HERE WE GO LADIES IT’S RIVERDALE, CHAPTER EIGHTY: “Purgatorio”

I’m tuning in to be VERY entertained on the grounds that I missed almost the entirety of S4 and will not understand anything

we open with an incredible analogue comparing the football team to the Army, as men do construct rituals: football players get blown into the sky, etc., in a heartrending mash-up of Archie’s innocence + the American ideal/expectations/pipeline of masculinity

Archie Company is decked out appropriately to storm Hürtgen Forest

that art direction trope where a character’s hearing goes EEEEEEEEEEEEEE after an explosion……...delightful

the Vixens and friends cheering him on from the sidelines as if Archie can only process his unprocessable present through the lens of his past………...hits the spot

distressingly wood-based rifles for our purposes

Archie > Dawson: I don’t mind telling you I felt emotion upon Archie hoisting his war buddy over his shoulders to that quadruple-toned “Chivalric Archie Using His Strength for Good” tune, like when he broke his whole hand busting Cheryl out of Sweetwater River

WHEN HE SAW HIRAM LODGE, I’M TELLING YOU! 

Hiram’s dragon-scale gloves? absolutely savory; he would

“Yonkers” is one of those New York place names I don’t totally buy is real (Poughkeepsie is another)

the sepia-toned light in this hospital room rings true judging by all the Captain America fanfiction I’ve read; I also like the mint-colored hand towels draped on Archie’s bedframe bought, one assumes, using the Department of Defense’s Kohl’s Cash

Archie made Sergeant, which is the best ranking for a fictional character: important enough that they can be a leader, get into trouble; low-profile enough that you don’t have to write them in the room making terrible decisions; probably won’t die immediately, as a Captain or Private might be

Fifth period is AP English: Archie reads A Farewell to Arms to Corporal Jackson, a WWI novel by Hemingway that Jug definitely turned him onto

Christ, Archie looks good in that on-leave jacket thing

I like Jackson’s subtle graph paper-print hospital gown

Gay?!: was Jackson in love with Archie? is he gonna bus to Riverdale once he’s off his pain meds? RAS, is that you in there?

God you know I love that haunted-ass Exorcist wooden bench bus light lighting

how long has the WW been relocated under Pop’s??? I do NOT know what happened to La Bonne Nuit

Sexy, aesthetic Southside: Fangs’ hair? his Tony Stark glasses? the girls’ “I’m a Slave 4 U” Burmese pythons? Toni’s headdress and immaculate glossed lip? 

Sixth period is Intro to Film: the only part of From Dusk till Dawn I’ve seen is Salma Hayek putting her toe in Quentin Tarantino’s mouth but judging from that I figure I’d like the rest 

The female gaze: Jesus Sweet Pea still looks good

Toni’s stage is flanked by twin pillars of melting candles and I would like someone to track those down for my bathroom

if they lay one hand on Pop Tate…

Betty appears to be, on her own, running the FBI training course. Betty is such a freak

Betty’s FBI-appointed psychologist is “Dr. Starling,” wears a great yellow blouse; Betty eats what appears to be a mini-sized Milky Way

her blond FBI trainer-boyfriend (uh) Glen appears to be an unholy fusion of Jimmi Simpson and that one actor with brown hair and really sharp light eyes whose acting credits I can’t think of right now, you know who I’m talking about (not the guy from Vampire Diaries)

I quite like her patterned blouse and I hate his yellow (gold?!) and blue tie

Please protect Betty: obviously we stan the Silence of the Lambs shit even as it remains infuriating Bryan Fuller couldn’t get his hands in it

Betty’s cat’s crying was so disturbingly baby-like that I had to leave the room once I realized it was in fact a cat

I’ve watched the Elisa Lam tape too many times in recent hours to handle this hallway shot

REALLY GROSS LICKING NOISES

the Trash Bag Killer coming at her was scary :(

Betty’s lovely blue knit cardi with the puffed sleeves!

50 Shades of Betty: clearing her throat before the doctor quite finishes her sentence—Lili Reinhart continues to be great at conveying “slightly perturbing subterranean tension”

was Charles a serial killer too??? oh damn!

Betty has been successfully holding off giving Glen a key to her place until now, an era that must come to a close

fellas, “Do I at least get a kiss?” is a bad move

Veronica was rich: Veronica’s new digs: exposed brick, bougiely avant-garde chandelier; possibly an elevator door right there behind the dude?

Veronica has married Hiram, to no one’s surprise

Chadwick looks like Jimmi Simpson and brunet Evan Peters plus a jaw

Veronica’s single-puffled-sleeved gown…..madamn (she has absolutely been taking secret birth control pills)

Summer + Blair = Veronica: of course Veronica would be great at Howard Ratner’s job; I MUST know what “specialty showcase haute couture offense” Vinnie has committed

T-Dubbs’ green jacket

Veronica pretended she was working at like, a department store? but she MISSED the EDGE post-day-trading

their apartment is so expensive that their bedroom is totally exposed

oh my god, Hermione

Best costume bit: please get me these satiny green high-waisted slacks?! and ugh her blouse has shoulder tassels……..she’s flourishing

“That’s threatening to an alpha like Chad.”

yes, they have a private elevator. fine.

Glen and Chad get their ties from the same Men’s Warehouse

“When that helicopter went down on the way to Martha’s Vineyard…”

you know kissing is 4-real when one person cups their hand to the back of the other person’s neck all close

I don’t understand the drop of the Glamergé egg but I appreciate that there is one and that Veronica is like, get this the fuck out of my house

Veronica’s shiny cropped tweed two-piece, Yvonne’s weird feathery coat that matches her bf’s shirt (you know she’s supposed to be “too much” because she’s got big hoop earrings)

God, Jughead is next and I’m not gonna be able to handle it

OH GOD IT’S SO MUCH WORSE THAN I THOUGHT

Alphabet City?! the piano?? the fucking East Coast Beat typewriter shit—the day robe? I’m—READING CLUBMASTERS? FORSYTHE???

OH GOD HE’S DATING ANOTHER WRITER (she has nice pants)

Jughead eats: “that place you like” is a HOT DOG STAND in the middle of SOME GRASS

I’ve seen Brick like thirty times: Jughead wears high-ankle light blue jeans, grey socks, and spectators that blend to create the illusion of wading boots. I’m going to commit a crime

Jughead doubts it: “So did Kerouac. And Hemingway. And Fitzgerald.” 

fuck yes I love Floundering Jughead, and his Pushy Agent who pronounces “career” like “Korea,” and the continuing tradition of Jughead getting kicked out of his house

I like Literary Grifter’s sweater

the Brat Pack, and most of the Rat Pack for that matter, were actors, but I assume RAS couldn’t resist the rhyme 

I was 100% afraid we were about to learn Cora was an uncomfortably-young undergrad

the musical cue as she reaches into her bag is absolutely as if she’s taking out a gun, and it might as well be! it’s the scariest thing in NYC: an unpublished manuscript

showrunners doing a classic I Love Lucy job partially concealing Vanessa Morgan’s pregnancy via medium close-ups, draping black clothes

Cheryl slowly turning to ask if doesn’t she look okay 10/10 icon

Cheryl’s pins: she has either a tiny spider or maybe a tick

Cheryl’s sheaths: the lacy red thing, amazing

why is Cheryl’s left hand gloved?

Cheryl’s a chaos angel from hell: Cheryl’s going to forge a Rembrandt, which unfortunately means she’s my favorite person on the planet (she does not look happy about doing this)

btw is Nana Rose an Immortal?

please tell me about Toni’s eyelashes

EXTREMELY HAUNTED DOLL?!

“Damn good coffee”: Archie’s earnest “Where are people gonna sit for the bus?” slayed me

fuck YEAH Ghoulies party house! terrible music but really good skull spray paint art

Jug looks LOW lol

Veronica’s blouse + buttons, impeccable

I’m writing a scene where it’s gay.: Tabitha/Squeaky

the hellscape semi’s red backlighting and its skeleton’s red eyes

I like Linette’s glossy bomber!

the trucker who’s about to kill her can’t also be the Trash Bag Killer….truckers have to stick to too much of a schedule….but he could be Betty’s meandering serial

I loved this episode

NEXT WEEK: Archie brings the FBI down on some people paying their rent :(

[podcasts-in-review]

Wolf 359

Alright, to start out, let’s get into one of my favorite audio dramas of all time: Wolf 359!

Wolf 359 is a science fiction character drama about the crew of the USS Hephaestus, a deep-space research station orbiting red dwarf Wolf 359, and the daily struggles, funny antics, and life-threatening perils that come with their life among the stars. There are a total of 61 episodes across 4 seasons, with several hours worth of bonus content to supplement it, and the podcast is completed. Episodes range from 20 to 40 minutes long, and they noticeably get longer as the series progresses. 

I personally love the way this podcasts blends comedy, horror, good character drama, and fantastic sci-fi action to create an incredible, character-driven narrative that packs a hefty emotional punch and will DEFINITELY leave you an emotional wreck. More than once. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

Now, into the nitty-gritty:

Plot/Writing - 9/10 - The plot of Wolf 359 is intense and fast-paced, never really staying in one spot for longer than a moment. Though the podcast starts out slow, it quickly picks up around the end of S1, and never stops until the last episode of S4. Mysteries are continually established, explored, and revealed, leaving you constantly in suspense, and though W359 typically follows a more episodic format, the actions and character interactions taken in previous episodes have long-lasting ramifications and consequences on the world at large. Gabriel Urbina and Sarah Shachat do an excellent job in writing a very dialogue-heavy story, and integrating more monologue-y bits into the plot fairly seamlessly. I could definitely see this story being changed into a TV sci-fi drama series very easily, with only minimal changes needed to the writing.

Characters - 10/10: The characters of Wolf 359 are really a step above, to say the least. All of the crew of the USS Hephaestus are absolutely brimming with personality, and every major character gets at least some amount of character development, with Hera, Minkowski, Eiffel and Lovelace being the strongest on this front. The characters all have complex, meaningful relationships with one another that grow and change throughout the series, and lend so much emotional weight to the many hard-hitting moments of the series. While some of the characters may start out as one-dimensional tropes, they quickly grow to become so much more, and feel very much like real people by the end of the podcast.

Technical Aspects - 9/10: The voice acting in this show is simply fantastic, and the performances give plenty of life to every single character. Though Zach Valenti’s Russian accent as mad-scientist Alexander Hilbert occasionally comes across as corny and fake, my personal favorite performances are Zach Valenti as Doug Eiffel, Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs as Isabel Lovelace, and Michaela Swee as Hera. I never really had any issues distinguishing voices while listening, even with a large ensemble cast. In addition, the soundscaping and audio editing, from explosions to spacewalks to fights, is absolutely phenomenal and really helps to augment a purely audio story into something more. Using the same audio clips for similar situations (typing on a keyboard, opening a hatch, depressurization) can occasionally seem repetitive and annoying, but are crucial for establishing character action and a sense of place, even when we can’t physically see what the characters are doing. The music, when it comes in, is great and memorable, and includes everything from classical to ambient to more intense tracks. 

Theming/Genre/Tone - 9/10: While in setting, Wolf 359 is strictly science fiction, it toys around with different elements of workplace comedy, character drama, action, and even horror to create a tone as varied and complex as its characters. I’ve been genuinely on edge listening to some of the scarier or more action-packed episodes, and the comedy in the lighter episodes is well executed and genuinely funny. This is the type of podcast that will make you laugh and kill off a character in the very same episode, and while these abrupt tonal shifts are common in this podcast, it only occasionally felt out of place. Also, so. many. pop culture. references. I swear to god, there are more pop culture references per minute than there are in Deadpool and it is a thing to behold. If you aren’t as familiar with a lot of sci-fi media, it can take some getting used to, but for me, at least, they didn’t detract from the story. 

So, yeah, if you like Deep Space Nine, The Martian, or fantastic characters and a good plot that just so happen to be set in space, I would 110% recommend at least the first season of this show. Even if you only have a passing interest in sci-fi or have never listened to an audio drama before, I can guarantee there’s something in here for you to love. 

[iridescentides]

hello again dia!!! i hope you've been having a good weekend 💙 i know that you love austin & ally and i wanted to know what are some of your favorite episodes/moments/characters? i've never watched the show myself so maybe your love for it will rub of and finally convince me 😋 - gcwca secret santa 🎅🎁🎄

AHHHHHH HI thank you for asking! this show is literally so special to me. 

i accidentally wrote a very long response so its under the cut:

i wanna start off by saying that the characters are why i love it the most. austin and ally is my number one comfort show, and specifically dez, trish, and austin are my comfort characters. not saying that i dont like ally; shes nice and obviously very essential to the loving group dynamic but the other three are so fun and wacky and interesting and just some of my favorite characters of all time.

i think at the heart of it my favorite thing about the show is the love. its all good vibes and none of the emergencies are really that deep, and the main four just care about each other so much and show it in so many ways!!! i love their whole friend group dynamic bc when one of them has a problem, they all work together to solve it. and each dyad has their own little relationship thats special in its own way. they hang out at the mall 24/7 (which is a DREAM scenario bc the mall is my favorite place to be) and just have adventures together and learn about each other.

my absolute favorite episode is s03e19, beauties and bullies, bc its all about trish. there are a few trish-centric episodes in the show, and everyone gets their spotlight at one point or another, but this is one of the only episodes that allows her to be open with her emotions. shes the toughest one in the group, always loud and brave and explosive, but in this episode she is the one that needs help, support, and comfort. i love the consistency in her characterization in this episode bc she is so reluctant to be on the receiving end of this support, and she even convinces her friends shes fine at first. and even though its not a role they typically play for her bc shes so good at defending herself, the group quickly springs into action to protect her, to care for her, to help her through it bc they know that thats their job as her closest friends. it literally makes me cry every time. plus i love that its ultimately dez who figures out who the bully is bc even though hes generally seen as dumb and imperceptive, it shows that he seriously cares about trish and is able to pick up on details when it comes to helping her, or any of his friends for that matter.

my favorite season is s4 bc of the tangible growth and change we see in everyone, but especially austin. season 4 really just shows how much they have all impacted each other, and how no matter what happens, they will always be in each others lives. in this season we see them take on a more serious and practical goal together, opening up their own music school. each of them takes on a role that plays to their strengths, and i absolutely love the teamwork. one of the overarching themes of the season is role modeling, and it makes me extremely emotional to see each of them channel their passion into helping kids pursue similar goals. the season is great in so many ways.

but season 4 austin moon is by far the best austin moon. at the beginning of the show he was a goofy kid who dreamed about being famous and pursued the goal very selfishly, even stealing allys song in the first episode and becoming an overnight internet sensation off of it. he was always loving, enthusiastic, sweet, and charming, but throughout the series we see him learn how to be a friend and how to care for other people. in the beginning, being a star is all that matters to him, and we watch ally very patiently, but skillfully, set an example for him of respecting other peoples time, effort, and attention. my favorite thing about austin is that he always has the best intentions at heart, and when he messes something up, he puts in genuine care to fix it in a meaningful way. lots of tv protagonists cause problems and then “fix” them halfheartedly and we just forgive them bc we have to and we move on with the show. but austin consistently learns and grows and keeps doing better for the people he cares about most, he comes through for them at the most unexpected times, and he picks them up when theyre down. even as he gets more famous and successful, his friends continue to come first. (i dont want to spoil too much plot wise, but) at the beginning of season 4 austin is unable to perform publicly, and it really hurts and breaks him bc performing is his favorite thing to do; his dream has always been to be a pop star. so when the music school opens in s4 we see him actively, selflessly, channel all of his passion for the thing he loves most, and give it to kids in a meaningful and special way. he has grown from a well-intentioned but self-absorbed teenager into a very caring and kind young adult who makes a difference in the lives of other people. he struggles with his identity and defining himself without his dream, but quickly gets to work making an active positive impact on those around him.

my all time favorite moment of the show, even though its super small, is dez’s solo in the song at the end of s03e06, glee clubs and glory. dez is the most routinely overlooked member of the group bc hes so goofy and quirky. he says a million things that dont make any sense, and he is definitely the comic relief character. however, the reason i love him (and why im like 80% sure hes my actual favorite of the four of them, even though its so hard for me to decide officially) is because despite all the little jokes and jabs at his expense, despite the goofiness that keeps others from taking him seriously, despite being knocked down so many times, he never stops dreaming. he literally never gives up. he has so much passion and enthusiasm inside of him, and he is overflowing with love and affection for his friends. he loves making videos but also pursues a billion different little hobbies. he has sooo many hidden talents, and thats something i was pointing out to my gf when i first showed her the show; dez is so incredibly capable and skilled, but so humble about it. he does things not for an end goal, but for the joy of participating, and when he doesnt get all the spotlight or attention, thats okay with him bc he had such a good time anyway. so in this episode, glee clubs and glory, after being passed up for the glee club over and over again, then letting his enthusiasm get the best of him as captain, and then being dethroned at the end of it all, he is still so happy to get his little moment in the end because hes truly a team player. its nice to see him shine. heres a link to the performance and the part im talking about is at 1:30. 

OKAY i am gonna stop there bc theres a million little things that i love about the show but i already wrote you an essay. i guess the last thing i wanna say is that every single austin moon song fucking slaps. my favorite is probably the main title theme song (can’t do it without you) bc not only is it the ultimate BOP but they also reference it periodically throughout the show to acknowledge that they are all successful because of each other, and the friendship as a whole makes each of them stronger than they are individually. my other faves from the show are a billion hits, steal your heart, stuck on you, and chasin’ the beat of my heart.

(okay i lied i have ONE more final closing thought! i dont really love the romantic pairing of austin/ally, i like them better platonically. not saying that they make a bad couple by any means. but i just hate the trope that the main girl/boy HAVE to get together so as a concept it bugs me. but i lowkey ship trish/dez a little bit.)

TLDR; the characters are literally all my favorite for different reasons, and the best thing about the show to me is their group dynamic and the ways that they consistently show love and care for each other.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Panty and Stocking, Episodes 8-10

In which we tumble head-over-heels into the sandbox, the creativity is off the chain, and somehow the sexy times are still fun.

Anarchist’s Playground

Hiroyuki Imayishi is nothing if not eclectic when it comes to his storytelling sensibilities. Whatever else you might say about him, you could never accuse him of regurgitating the same stock anime tropes that everyone else does. He is defiantly anti-pigeonholing, incorporating the influences of so many different styles and subgenres over the course of his stories just because he can. This isn’t just limited to Japanese influences either; it’s clear that he has a lot of love for staples of Western entertainment, referencing our own pop culture artifacts as easily as he references his own. There’s a reason his work tends to be so popular over here in the US of A; he’s one of the few Japanese creators with as great a love for American nerd culture as he has for anime’s own otaku sensibilities. And his works are an artist’s playground as a result, a place where animators and writers of all stripes can come aboard and leave their own unique stamp on the property. Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill were veritable explosions of creative energy, with so many crazy ideas popping around every corner and so many subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the geek properties that have captured our imaginations since time eternal. Panty and Stocking is no exception to this rule; who else would style an anime so closely after American cartoons for no other reason than because he thought it would be cool? The concept of creative anarchy is baked into every single facet of this show’s production, the desire to break free of constraints and just do whatever the hell you want to. Hell, our heroes are literally named the Anarchy sisters, while the recurring villains are agents of stifling order that want to shut them down. Because as has been regularly established in this show, subtlety is for cowards.

I bring this up because this stretch of episodes is easily the most eclectic, reference-filled, creatively broad stretch of episodes yet. The stories contained here are a treasure trove of references to classic film and pop culture staples, incorporating so many unique animation styles and distinct genres that all fit shockingly well into Panty and Stocking’s previously established world. We start out with a classic zombie movie scenario that slots our fallen angels into an otherwise straightforward brain-munching Night of the Living Dead ripoff, mocking the claustrophobic tension and sacrifice play tropes that comes with the genre (”My life story deserves to be told in paperback and hardcover!” “You only wrote three pages!��). Then we transition into an otherwise normal half-episode with all the usual hijinks, but good lord is it a particularly funny one. Something about the combination of a having-way-too-much-fun Tom Cruise (”Our cock of justice will make these cunts wet with the moist tears of justice for what they’ve done!”), the unnecessarily British judge and suddenly smart lawyer monkey really laid me out on the floor laughing. Next episode kicks off with the Beach Episode, with the animation suddenly taking a nosedive into Adobe Flash levels of awkward, slidey textures (and I mean this in the most positive way I can, I adore well-crafted cheapness like this) with a brief South Park reference for no apparent reason, before completely switching gears once again into a bizarre treacly love story that plays Stocking’s sudden attraction to a farting pig of a ghost oddly straight. Finally, episode 10 starts off with an incredibly Imayishi-feeling sketch full of harsh, exaggerated angles and forced perspective that makes everyone look like they’re in a cubist painting, and it closes out with an MTV parody music video bringing it all home.

And, of course, between those last two things I mentioned is the absolute cream of the crop: a three-part, mostly wordless miniseries following the adventures of Chuck the immortal dog as he fights against his Demon Sister counterpart, titled “Chuck to the Future” for no reason other than Imayishi wanted to reference Back to the Future, even though the individual episodes have nothing at all to do with it. Part 1 is a Tom & Jerry slapstick routine with substantially more viscera, revealing that these immortal dogs are powered by demons that live in their brains and pull them back together whenever they get splattered. Part 2, “In 3D”, actually goes full 3D with sweeping camera shots and fully polygonal models and sets, echoing the kind of kinetic momentum that Kill la Kill’s epic battles would later become famous for. And finally, Part 3 goes full classic horror, complete with black-and-white film grain, stilted editing for eerie effect, and unmoving camera shots that settle in the stillness of the atmosphere, finishing off with the two demons silently fucking in front of Chuck’s comatose corpse, because at this point did you really expect anything different. It makes absolutely no sense, it’s completely ridiculous, and I’m pretty sure I loved every single second of it. They did the Dr. Manhattan rebuilding sequence, for crying out loud,how can I not appreciate the sheer audacity on display here?

Were all the bits as winning? Honestly, no, a couple of them felt a little lacking to me. I felt the zombie one could’ve gone farther in being its own thing instead of being so beholden to the tropes it was trying to parody, and I’m still not sure what to make of Stocking’s impromptu love story. But honestly, I feel like that’s beside the point. Overall, it was just really fun to see this explosion of creativity, watching so many different talents take on so many different ideas of nerddom and put their own unique spin on them. Is there any deeper meaning? Probably not, but does there really need to be? This is a show about anarchy, after all, and what better way to celebrate anarchy than letting yourself be whatever the hell you want to be at any given time, no questions asked? 

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

And on that same subject, how bizarre is it that out of all the ecchi shows I’ve watched, it’s by far the filthiest, crassest one that consistently feels the most considerate and good-natured? I’ve been bitching about fanservice pretty much since I started this damn blog, y’all know by this point it takes a lot to get me invested in sexy times. But Panty and Stocking keeps making it work. Because when all is said and done, the ladies still rule the goddamn roost here. They’re never helpless before the whims of a leering camera, they’re having just as much fun with this action as the audience presumably is. Consider the aforementioned beach episode, which opens with a Garterbelt speech about how sometimes, people just want to turn their brains off and be entertained by simple pleasures, so why not relax and enjoy it while it lasts? Again, subtle this show is not, but it’s indicative of the mindset Panty and Stocking approaches not just this episode, but the entire show with. It doesn’t want to be gross or off-putting or mean-spirited; it just wants to have fun. And it lets all its characters actually have fun over the course of this episode, even as the forced perspective crotch shots are notably more plentiful than usual. Because as always, Panty and Stocking are clearly having just as much fun playing into their flirty, sexy personas as the guys are having watching them. Even when we reach the giant sea monster orgy at the end, with tentacle rape and living starfish bikinis aplenty (”Shit, stupid starfish!”), they’re still clearly having an utter blast with the whole thing, so how can I not have a blast with them? It really is remarkable how far a little perspective can go in transforming something uncomfortable into something hilarious and harmless. Yes, it’s still pandering, yes, it’s still in bad taste, but it’s so up front about itself and so ultimately harmless in its execution that it stands as proof positive for how to do this kind of cheesecake right. Now no other anime has any excuse.

Odds and Ends

-”Can’t hurt to try.” “YES IT FUCKING CAN!” pfft

-”Zombies can still have sex, right?” Asking the important questions here.

-”UNBELIEVABLE! I’m quietly judging you.” This guy is having a BALL.

-”What am I, Rain Man?” dkhakhsdasd

-”How the crap did you get those off me?” You don’t wanna know, sweetie.

-”Did I screw you?” I am having so much fun with this bit holy shit.

-”If it’s so sacred, then why is there a stripper pole?” Again, Panty asks the important questions.

-”This isn’t even tight enough to be a turn-on.” OUCH.

-”Doesn’t the heat irritate your acne or something?” “Yes, it does.” Brief’s great, guys.

-”Come get my weiners, hot and dark and juicy fresh!” Garterbelt, please, there are children watching.

-”Their adequacy will just make our victory that much more rapturous.” No, not the horrors of being adequate!

-I’m going to start using the insult “Sulphuric Dollymop” in casual conversation from now on.

-When suddenly, The Road to El Dorado.

-”You can’t get this shit on ESPN, bro!” lol

-”And I thought I had crabs before!” asjkdhaskjdahsdkj

-”It’s all the same when you’re face down.” “Then go get you some, Helen Keller.” JESUS FUCK

-”People are laughing at you, which means they’re laughing at me, which is no bueno!” What good sisters.

-”This is not how I thought I would lose my virginity.” I... have concerns.

-WHY IS MASTER HAND MADE OF FLIES NOW

One more session to go. See you next time for the conclusion to Panty and Stocking!

[justreviewingokay]

D.C. Beetlejuice Review

Let me cut to the chase.  I know what you’re gonna ask, is Beetlejuice “good”?  Now I have a very complicated answer, but I will say this: if a Tim Burton styled stage show is what you’ve always wanted, then should probably be off to see it as soon as you can.  Hold your sandworms, I’m not done yet.  Beetlejuice may be a visual masterpiece, but it is also a work in progress.  If you’re looking for more than high caliber Broadway comedy actors and half-baked humor, it may be better to wait and see what the move to the Winter Garden Theatre has in store for us.  

Now for the complicated answer.  If spoilers aren’t your thing, turn back now, for the surprises of Beetlejuice are extremely rewarding.

Making it Beetlejuice’s given job to usher the dead into the netherworld is an excellent addition to the character, except there isn’t very much character to begin with.  The opening makes the blind mistake of relying on the audience already knowing who Beetlejuice is.  A newcomer to the show might find him confusing or vague.  “The Whole Being Dead Thing” is an explosively entertaining number where BJ bashes some funeral goers.  Cutting in half way is Lydia mourning with “Invisible”.  Although the long arm gag is good and the bus driver costume from the film is much appreciated, the big B is introduced all too soon. The buildup is killed rather quickly and consequently, the anticipation.  Alternatively, since the scene starts off with a dirge, Lydia could plunge right into “Invisible” with Beetlejuice popping out of the casket and delivering the brilliant line “a ballad already?” The audience cheers as he climbs out and begins “The Whole Being Dead Thing”, uninterrupted.   Act One’s pacing is quite tangled, so this jumpy establishing song is important.  Alex Brightman is an absolute tour de force and does his best with the often immature dialogue.  It’s obvious that Brightman is doing a good job of balancing the voice, but it’s still a bit much when he’s singing.  His vocal talents are betrayed in this respect and some of the lyrics are hard to understand because of it.  

The Maitlands are brilliantly portrayed by green clad Rob McClure and Kerry Butler, known for Something Rotten! and Little Shop of Horrors, respectively.  “Ready, Set, Not Yet” is funny, but far too frantic to be endearing. Contrary to the writers’ belief, Adam and Barbara can be thoroughly lame and likeable simultaneously.  In the following scenes one could argue that too many pelvic thrusts are performed.  The scene progression is quite choppy, with so many reprises that one wonders if the song ever ended in the first place.  “Fright of their Lights” has a weird 1980’s sound and it has a great joke where Adam informs BJ that they can still hear him, with BJ responding “Well that was a soliloquy, so you’re the one being rude.”  BJ’s interactions with them are typically crass, but not in a clever adult way, an almost childish mentality instead.  Many of the jokes end with an unnecessary “F You,” which often feels like it’s only there to keep children out of the theatre.

The show really begins to pick up when the Deetz family begin to move in and Lydia sings “Dead Mom,” easily one of the best numbers. Sophia Anne Caruso plays the iconic goth girl in a way that doesn’t leave you cringing at all.  As the show progresses, Lydia upstages everyone.  An odd thing to note though, Lydia comes downstairs to dinner wearing a yellow dress to confuse her dad, which is exactly what Wednesday Addams does in the Addams Family Musical.  

Slapstick is the name of the game, considering BJ himself isn’t given many witty lines in the first act.  The sight gags are what work best, so you’d assume that the iconic Day-O scene would be the hit.  Instead of ascending to a new level of ridiculousness, it stays at relatively the same length.  A puppet roasted pig is added to the song which is funny by itself, but they didn’t stop there.  The pig’s male organ begins to invade Delia’s personal space.  Leslie Kritzer (a delightful scene stealer) appeared to be having troubles realistically interacting with it, awkwardly thrusting herself into the pig’s appendage for the remainder of the song.  Even though it garnered some laughs, initially it was a distraction from more clever effects such as the shrimp hand.  This is a perfect example for most jokes in the show; something clever is undermined by something vulgar.  They say a funny person can make a good joke, but a comedian can take it to the next level.

Act Two is significantly better than the first, giving the ghost with the most just the right edge.  “That Beautiful Sound” is my personal favorite, showing off the comedic prowess of Beetlejuice and Lydia as a pair, only seen before during “Say My Name.” Casting actual teenagers as the girl-scout and Lydia was a great move, considering the big concern among fans after the misfires in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“Children We Didn’t Have” is a wonderfully somber piece, (beautifully sung I might add) but would have made a larger impact if the audience had learned to see the Maitlands in a more positive view throughout the first act. If any song is to be removed, I hope that this one survives instead.  

Otho’s lines aren’t too brilliant, but luckily for them, they’ve got Kelvin Moon Loh to deliver.  Brief as the character is in this version, Kelvin’s comedic talents make the scenes memorable.  His days on SpongeBob SquarePants especially prove that he deserves a bigger spotlight.  

“Everything is Meh” by Boy Inferno is quite brilliant considering… well… boy bands are dead.  The netherworld has a well-designed look and the characters are quite faithful to the film, including Mrs. Juno Shoggoth exhaling smoke through her neck, Miss Argentina, a shrunken headed hunter, (the effect works surprisingly well) and that one guy who appears to have been run over.  “Running Away” has a nice tune to it and its enjoyable right up until the “woah-oh’s” start off.  This trope feels almost anachronistic and quickly evokes the desire to attempt Miss Argentina’s “little accident” on yourself.  It does end up being a good moment though, with character development for Lydia and Charles.  

The ending is hilarious and pretty unexpected. Beetlejuice’s exit is somewhat delayed though; every time you think he’s done, he turns around and delivers another cheesy one-liner.  BJ being carried off into the netherworld was quite enough. Even though it doesn’t really make sense, (does Lydia somehow have a karaoke record?) it is indeed surprisingly pleasing to hear the cast sing “Jump in the Line”… and the levitation effect is flawless.    

In fact, probably the best aspect of the show is special effects and scenic design.  David Korins has done an absolutely astounding job of fulfilling Tim Burton’s vision, all while presenting his own take.  Michael Curry’s puppet design is not to be missed, with smooth movement and grand scale. Enough cannot be said about the visual aptitude of Beetlejuice.

The music by Eddie Perfect is ironically not… perfect.   Sorry.                                Rock and Roll style ballads may be a good choice for the musical, but a few things it still lacks.  Remnants of Danny Elfman’s original score are always welcome and can be heard during some cues.  After all, the music is half of what makes Beetlejuice feel like Beetlejuice. Thankfully, the keys and trumpets are pretty prominent in Perfect’s score, which helps greatly to set the tone. It’s important to mention that one thing is missing… strings.  Violins are either utilized very little or are nonexistent.  Sound design should be looked in to, most of the time the music overpowers the voices or the voices hide the music.  Even though I have no hearing problems whatsoever, the lyrics were frequently hard to understand.  (I do realize that this could entirely be the National Theatre sound system’s fault) When you come down to it, the music needs beefing up. Giving it a fuller, more orchestral sound to complement the rock instruments is the exact way to accomplish this.  (See Hans Zimmer, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Kansas, or Foreigner with the David Eggar Orchestra)

Overall, Beetlejuice is a spectacular show with immense potential.  That fact is, frankly, quite enough to satisfy considering it could have been a huge misstep, similar to the fate of Moulin Rouge.  With the fabulous cast and crew carrying it through, Beetlejuice could be an absolute Broadway hit in the making.

We’ll see at the Winter Garden Theatre on April 25th, 2019.  

[thesinglesjukebox]

APINK - %% (EUNG EUNG)

[7.00]

Is the Pink Factory open for field trips? Asking for a friend.

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Well, we can thank Black Eyed Pilseung and Jeon Goon for the two best K-pop singles of the year thus far, but could we expect anything less from the people behind some of the best K-pop songs of the past ten years? "%% (Eung Eung)" finds Apink doubling down on their new sound, as established by the success of "I'm So Sick," and the result is such expertly-crafted synthpop that Apink feel like a new force to be reckoned with. Part of that comes with how little pussyfooting happens here -- the girls are lonely, but they don't linger on that feeling for long. Instead, they put an offer on the table for suitors to approach, but they never let you believe that they'll settle for anyone beneath their standards. The beat drop in the pre-chorus bolsters their assertive tone, but it's the lighter chorus that sounds more intimidating. The vocal melody has an underlying sadness, but the teeth-baring grin and poise of "If you're not confident, goodbye" make clear their no-bullshit attitude. Synths dance around the track as if to elucidate the girls' hypnotizing charm, but they're also there to tease your incompetence. [8]

Thomas Inskeep: Linn drums and "pew! pew!"ing synths ping off each other, while the ladies of Apink do their thing and keep up with the tempo, elevated like my heartbeat when I hear pop music this expertly crafted. If the Spice Girls had appeared a decade earlier, they'd have tried to make a record as sublime as "%%." [9]

Iris Xie: My impression of this song is that if an international heist group managed to kidnap Grimes in order to train an AI machine on her composition style and inspirations, but then the heist group suddenly decided they wanted very loudly sung choruses...the result would be this song. The start is promising. Some tricky xylophone-sounding synths that riff off the common trope of a ticking clock White Rabbit-style are combined with cooing whisper vocals, and it starts off like a promising season 2 opener (Steven Universe and Hilda mashup, maybe?). But then it immediately drops off into several melody lines that don't meld with the intriguing synth backdrops, and it ends up sounding more like an auditory stutter that is trying to match the frantic kick drums in the background. Combined with the refrain being cute and cheerleader-y with some sorrowful-sounding verses... it's a bit confusing. It's not a boring song, but this sounds more like a mash-up than anything that brings out the qualities of the vocal track or the instrumentals, or even fully takes advantage of the potentially intriguing dissonances that could occur. Due to this, I can't wait to see what APINK will cook up next, honestly. Sometimes confusing songs are worth playing on repeat. [6]

Juana Giaimo: Apink keeps the energy high throughout the whole song. Their delicate voices are the stars, but they are enhanced by details that make "%%" sound unique like the keyboards which echo the vocal melody in the prechorus, and the instruments going silent for just an instant, followed by a drum that comes just before the "Eung eung" so that this part has an explosive effect. [7]

Anjy Ou: My grandma tells me to smile sweetly whenever declining to give my number to an admirer -- ostensibly to be polite but more likely because it throws them off. This song kind of feels like the k-pop version of that. It makes you tilt your head to the side a bit: buttery synths run over stuttering, insistent drums, snaps and handclaps; blink and you're in a different place musically and wondering how you got there. Bomi's "real recognize real, truly" and Namjoo's "thank you, but sorry" are dismissals delivered sweetly but somehow more devastating for it. "I won't settle for less than amazing so nod your head if you think you're worthy of me" is not a message that goes down well with the general public when coming from women, but it's packaged enticingly so that it won't make too many waves -- and it gets an emphatic "%%" from me. [7]

Jessica Doyle: The backing, smooth and lush, and the vocals, high enough to risk sounding shrill, absolutely do not go together. (Further complicating things: Namjoo doesn't sound shrill, and the result is that for the second straight single I can barely hear her.) Fortunately this is all in service of a song about standoffish ambivalence, so the flip from smooth synthpop to abrasive vocals makes sense. From Apink in particular it makes even more sense: this being the group who has been known for years for the contrast between the cutesy concepts and the barely-concealed (normal-natural-human-adult-woman) tensions for various members and the group as a whole. From a brand-new group I might find those distorted eung eung grunts off-putting, but from this one it feels challenging. [6]

Alfred Soto: The tectonics of "%%" fascinate me: synths that flicker, vanish, loom large, servicing a song whose lyrics on first glance address erotic hesitation. The faint drums 'n' bass lilt of the percussion serves that ambivalence. Giving it a pulse is Apink, who don't confuse the projection of ambivalence with non-alignment. [7]

Ramzi Awn: "%% (Eung Eung)" features the kind of songwriting that is hyperfocused on the melodic arch to a fault. Melody has always been one of the most important elements of a pop song, but when it leaves little room for drama as a result, the output suffers no matter how tight the tune is. A "less is more" approach to stringing notes together would relieve Apink of the pressure of finding new vocal twists and turns in ever bar and allow for more surprises for the listener. A little open space wouldn't hurt either. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[pixelgrotto]

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part ten

Resident Evil 6 is the big one that I was anticipating when I started this series playthrough in March. It’s the one that seems to have split the fanbase like no other, the one that some folks love and others abhor, and the one that took Resident Evil so far into the realm of explosions on top of zombies on top of exploding zombies that the franchise had no choice but to dial the entire thing back in Resident Evil 7 in order to give everyone’s minds a break before those exploded too. There is, in fact, a particular sort of enemy in this game that represents it well - called the Whopper, it’s a giant Fat Albert-looking thing that charges at you in a truly grotesque example of fun character design. It’s a bioweapon to be reckoned with, and when you see one coming your way, all you can say is “OH SHIT” as you try to blast its head apart before it barrages you into a wall.

RE6 is a whopper of a game. It’s chock full of so many different gameplay styles, so many plot threads, so many bits and pieces barely holding together at the seams in a mad effort to appease all sectors of the fan base - the people who preferred Resident Evil when it was eerie and quiet, the fans who fell in love with the series when Resident Evil 4 introduced an emphasis on action and the shippers who just love the characters and want to see them press the trigger of a Magnum at the same time and let loose with a bullet that will send the remains of a hulking Serbian mutation go stumbling backwards into the flames of a burning wind tunnel. 

The only way to properly assess RE6 in the midst of all this madness is to look at its four campaigns one-by-one, which took me 33 hours in total to complete, a staggering number for this series. 

Leon’s campaign - Everyone’s favorite Resident Evil protagonist who is still rocking Leonardo DiCaprio 90s hair (even though he’s aging in real-time and is apparently in his late 30s now) is BACK in this campaign, which seems to be the one that the game wants you to play first. It’s a rollicking adventure which I personally thought was the best of the bunch, though I wouldn’t blame you if you found Chris’ campaign better. I think I was won over by the fan service, since Leon’s opening chapter immediately channels Resident Evil 2 by forcing you to escape Tall Oaks, an American metropolitan area that’s essentially Raccoon City 2.0. Zombies will be lurching at you from the darkness like the old games, you’ve gotta run through subway cars just like in RE2 and RE3, and the whole vibe actually approaches scary at a few moments, which is something that the rest of this game has absolutely no time for. Partnered with Leon is Helena, a new character who’s also a US government agent but frankly kind of boring, and the pair quickly find themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy engineered by a politician named Derek Simmons. To figure out the extent of his conspiracy, you’ve gotta play Ada’s campaign (all the characters’ stories intersect at various points, which is one of this game’s best ideas), but let’s just say that Leon’s party ends in a wild rush to a made-up Chinese city named Lanshiang - which, from the POV of someone who lived in Hong Kong for six years, is clearly HK under another name. Half of Lanshiang gets blown up, Simmons transforms into what looks like a T-Rex and then a giant insect kaiju, and the general tone is deliciously batshit, though if you don’t like batshit then your mileage will vary. Leon gets music that I like to call "Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats” for his ending theme, and I feel like this phrase can summarize the tone of the entire Resident Evil franchise perfectly. 

Chris’ campaign - If Leon’s adventure was the cheesy-but-occasionally-spooky “LET’S TAKE THESE ZOMBIES TO SUPLEX CITY, CHUMS” vibe of Resident Evil 4 on acid, then Chris’ campaign is the “MILITARY ESPIONAGE ACTION AGAINST BIOWEAPONS, BRUH” vibe of Resident Evil 5 on acid. It begins with Chris suffering from a bout of PTSD after losing a contingent of his men in a made-up country that’s supposed to be Serbia, then moves to Lanshiang after ace sniper Piers recruits Chris for one last mission. Instead of zombies, you fight mostly J’avo, a breed of terrorists using viruses to give themselves horrific limbs, and everything resembles a Call of Duty or SOCOM game, with Chris hearing instructions from his squad leader through his headpiece, ducking behind cover to shoot J’avos apart and generally being a weathered, grumpy soldier. The main theme of Chris’ campaign is actually removed from the overarching tale involving Simmons, and the focus is instead on the quieter, MANLY subplot about how all these years of fighting monstrosities has worn Mr. Redfield down. He needs to learn how to be a soldier once more, and Piers - a guy who I was initially suspicious of because he’s a pretty boy with nicely groomed hair, and those sorts are usually lame in Japanese video games - comes through as one of the most likable additions to Resident Evil lore in a long time to offer Chris much-needed support. The entire campaign might actually be better if played as Piers instead of Chris, especially due to a touching ending scene which is probably the one moment where the game’s plot transcends crazy horror action and enters the realm of something actually thought-provoking. Chris’ campaign, in general, is also where RE6 seems the most focused and confident, though the cover shooting mechanics are clunky when compared to titles that actually specialize in cover shooting, like Gears of War. Chris also doesn’t have Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats for his ending music, so Leon gets a tiny point ahead of him in my book, but not by much. 

Jake’s campaign - I’ve read a few reviews that call this campaign the “experimental” one, and...yeaaaaah, it is. Jake, who’s the son of former Resident Evil baddie Albert Wesker, was presumably designed to serve as a bold new protagonist for future games, but he’s kind of an emo douchebag, so I played through the entirety of his missions as his partner Sherry Birkin. Sherry’s the little girl from Resident Evil 2 all grown up, which I think is genius, because she serves as a tangible example of this franchise’s progression over the years. You could probably show her picture to anyone unfamiliar with Resident Evil and be like, “That’s a formerly 10-year-old side character from the second game grown up into a secret agent” and get a response of "Woah, cool,” so yeah, I like Sherry a lot. In fact, her presence made this whole campaign tolerable, because Jake is an edgelord and his missions run the confused gamut from shoot ‘em up sections to weird exploration bits that seem to want to channel the spirit of the old games but don’t succeed. Then there are the stealth and chase sequences against Ustanak, the “hulking Serbian mutation” that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. This fellow was clearly created to remind Resident Evil veterans of Mr. X and Nemesis from RE2 and RE3, but while those guys would break down walls and pop outta nowhere to put a lump in your throat, Ustanak’s every impending arrival is advertised from a mile away, to the point where he’s not really frightening - just redundant. And the stealth bits against him seem like B-tier ripoffs of sequences in Metal Gear Solid, because RE6′s engine is really not engineered for sneakiness. At one point, Sherry and Jake have to hide in garbage dumpsters as Ustanak sniffs around, and that serves as an accurate representation of what large portions of their campaign are. These two kiddies do get a cheesy love ballad for their ending song, though, because the game really wants you to ship ‘em. Sherry, ya deserve better. 

Ada’s campaign - As messy as Jake’s campaign is, however, it’s nothing compared to Ada’s, which was originally an unlockable extra in the original release of RE6 and designed to tie up loose story threads. It does do that, though the resulting plot - where Simmons got so obsessed with Ada Wong that he whipped up an entirely new virus to re-create her and then lost track of it - is pretty meh, though it could perhaps be an intriguing exploration of the depths of male entitlement in the hands of a better writer. Aside from these pieces of so-so story, Ada’s adventure offers aggravation in the form of bad level design and a truly horrid slew of Quicktime Events and wretched stealth sections, which, once again, this game just doesn’t do well. It opens with her investigating a sub filled with guards that she’s encouraged to sneak past, except you can’t really sneak in RE6 and eventually they all notice and decide to gangbang you, and then the sub floods and there’s dizzying shaky cam everywhere that made me feel sick. You’re given a minimal amount of seconds to succeed on the Quicktime Events to escape the rising floodwaters, and I felt like I was playing a game of Dragon’s Lair, where you need to press right or left immediately or risk seeing yourself die over and over again. That sums up the frustration of Ada’s campaign, which also made me realize one important thing - I really don’t find Ada Wong to be much of an interesting character. She’s little more than a walking femme fatale trope, and even people who insist on shipping her with Leon will probably have to admit that those two’s “relationship,” if you can even call it that, is little more than quick winks and five minute interactions that have amounted to nothing over the span of nearly twenty years. The pair of them get ONE good scene on a bridge in this game, but that’s it, and honestly, their cornball kiss near the end of RE2 is still a more genuine character interaction. Oh yeah, and on the topic of ending music, since I seem to be coming back to that a lot in this post, Ada gets generic filler tunes for her credit roll. How appropriate. 

As you can see in the impressions above, in its own special way, Resident Evil 6 has something for everyone, ranging from a quality tale about battle-hardened men shooting biomutations to terrible levels that feel like they came out of a 2005 PS2 game that was quickly relegated to the bargain bin at Gamestop. Reviews were all over the place when this sucker came out, and still are today, with just as many people insisting that this game is the shit as there are people emphasizing that it is shit. My verdict? It’s BOTH, with some truly excellent parts and some truly abhorrent ones. It could have done with some trimming, for sure, and at the end of the day, Leon’s and Chris’ campaigns feel like the only real important ones here. A streamlined and likely better-received version of Resident Evil 6 would’ve only focused on those two guys - since one pivotal scene where the pair meet for a few minutes, briefly scuffle and POINT THEIR GUNS AT EACH OTHER YEAAA FAN SERVICE - seems to have been written first. That would’ve given Resident Evil 6 a better balance, with Leon’s missions possibly focusing on old school survival horror and pulp while Chris’ missions would lean hard on the military action stuff. 

But we didn’t get that. Instead, what we got is a shambling whopper of a game - at times as unwieldy and ridiculous as the enemy bearing the same name, at other times just as satisfying as a real-life beef whopper. Resident Evil 6 is both good and bad, the video game equivalent of an excessive and expensive comic book crossover, and shit, I think I’ve just written the most about it than any of its predecessors.

That, at the very least, has to count for something.

All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.

[broadwaybydesign]

Lady in Red: Linda Cho’s “Anastasia” Pièce de Résistance

I was going to wait a little bit before doing a piece on one specific outfit, especially since I’ve blogged about it a couple times, but inspiration has struck and I want to try and go in-depth on one of my absolute favorite costumes of the 2016-2017 season today.

As those who follow my other blog ( @overheardinwod ) already know, I am a huge fan of the musical Anastasia and have eagerly anticipated its debut for years. Linda Cho, in doing her research for the costumes for the stage musical, clearly took some inspiration from the 1997 animated Don Bluth classic upon which the musical is partially based, but instead of doing a shot-for-shot remake of Anya’s costumes, she chose to adapt them or create entirely new designs.

One of those designs is Anastasia’s Royal Red gown, sumptuously decorated with gold filigree, beadwork, and some of the most impressive gem work I have seen on Broadway this season. It’s a showstopping gown, and the one in which Christy Altomare took her very well-deserved bow on opening night, which is where many of the stills for this review have come from. Fortunately for me, this is an eye-catching gown, and so there are a lot of high-quality stills to choose from.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what I believe to truly be Linda Cho’s greatest accomplishment from the production:

(Photo credit: JustJared)

I’d be emotional in something this fine too, so I completely understand the expression on Christy Altomare’s face (okay, it’s because of the wild reception to her performance from the crowd, but I had to). The dress is absolutely fantastic on her figure, which is both petite and slender--in some ways, that made Linda Cho’s job designing a little easier because (while a bit on the short side), Christy Altomare has a “classical” figure for a leading lady on Broadway.

The dress itself is in two parts: a rust-red and gold brocade underskirt (presumably with some kind of corsetry or petticoats beneath to provide additional body), with an outer satiny, silky red body that is richly enhanced by gold filigree, beadwork, and truly impressive beadwork. At first glance, it positively screams royalty, even without the tiara (it’s not quite a kokoshnik this time because of the lack of a solid band!) on the head of the wearer. It’s a gown that is meant to impress the audience, not only in the scene but out in the crowd as observers of the musical. It has presence and helps to make Anastasia stand out in a positive way.

Look at the background of the scene (where this dress appears, even if this is a still from the bows). The scenery is a blend of black, white, and gray, and the other figured onstage are clad either in white or in much more muted colors. The bright, vibrant red of the outer portion of the dress and the bust are designed to command the attention of the viewer; they make clear that not only is Anastasia the central character here, she is the most important figure in the building. Even from a distance, one can see how important this costume is: it’s heavy, it’s rich, it’s colorful (and in shades not seen elsewhere in the musical), and it has body that gives it substance. But beyond all of that, the detail hops out even from afar.

From afar, we can see the patterning in rough form. The fold filigree forms a geometric, almost feather-like design on the gown, while the bust sports a pattern that should be familiar to students of Russian history: it’s an homage to the Romanovs’ double-headed eagle, a symbol of Imperial Russia, the Romanov family, and the empire itself. But while typically a quite masculine symbol, here it takes on an airier, more feminine tone as befits the character. Even in a heavy dress like this, the light touch with the gold means that we are reminded that this is a princess, with all the soft connotations that word tends to conjure in our minds.

Let’s go in a bit closer, with a Broadway.com still from Christy Altomare’s dressing room (which I also first saw on @anyasdimitry‘s blog):

Up close, it’s easy to see the sheer beauty and mastery of the detail work, and the lighting lets us look even closer. We see that Linda Cho has chosen to accent the dress not only with gold filigree detailing, but with beadwork and with gem work. The way the light falls in this image, we can see that the jewels are quite a bit darker than the outer gown, but also more bright and “pure” red than the brocade that forms the inner body of the gown. That is a clever and intentional design decision; whenever you are stacking colors atop one another, you need to find ways to distinguish them. Usually you will do that by one of two means: variations in shade, or variations in texture. Linda Cho has taken both options here: she varied the texture of the brocade, silk or satin, and jewels, all the while finding complementary but quite different shades of red.

By having darker jewels on the dress, I noted earlier that there is an almost fiery effect. The jewels allow the dress to shimmer, looking like “sparks” over the more sustained flame of the satin surface of the outer body. It also means that the light will never catch on the dress the same way twice. Remember that jewels, when of a high quality (and while almost certainly rhinestones here, they will be of unmatched quality for a first-run Broadway production), jewels refract light and offer a little bit of “glow” when used in costumery.

For a better idea, Playbill provides us with a shot of Anastasia’s gown from the rear (I believe this still is from the Hartford production, but the gown itself did not change between tryouts and Broadway as near as I have been able to discern from my research):

Take a look at the sparkle and shine of the jewels on the bustle (which is the term generally used for the part of the rear of the dress that pops out a bit, offering a contrast to a woman’s bust in the front; traditionally this provided her with a bit more “personal space” on a ballroom floor, as well as flattered her figure). The darkness compared with the rich red color of the fabric gives the gown a whole new feel: the light catching on the stones almost gives a crackling effect. The gold filigree, in some ways, even takes a backseat to the interplay between the jewels and the fabric of the dress itself--but it also provides a contrast that is important.

There’s more than just color-matching at work here. Balancing a primary color with a metallic color has been a standard practice in design since the age of heraldry; colors (red, blue, yellow, and combinations thereof) and metals (gold and silver) could be mixed, but you always wanted to have a buffer between them, especially when using two different shades of the same color or tones of the same metal. Linda Cho has obeyed that relatively ancient rule by surrounding the ruby-red jewels with the gold filigree. In so doing, the jewels “pop” more and become much more noticeable than if they had merely been laid against the red body of the gown.

Another Broadway.com still offers us a better example of just how well this design works, this time as Ms Altomare emerges offstage:

Once again, we’re able to see the balance of the red tones from the brocade (the V-shape at the bottom of the frame), the silk/satin of the gown itself, and the jewels. In this light, the jewels on the bodice/bust appear dark and rich, almost crimson in color and tone, while those on the body of the dress, flaring out to the sides, are a lighter color that is just a bit offset from the red of the fabric beneath. This is one of the two images I have seen of this dress that really made me think of the phoenix idea I mentioned in another post. The other comes from my all-time favorite picture of the dress, from the New York Post’s “Page Six” blog:

Take these two previous pictures together and you can see some of what I mean by phoenix-like. The myth of the phoenix is that it is an immortal bird which ends its life in a bright explosion of flame and color, only to rise from the ashes reborn; it’s a classic mythological trope and one that I can’t help but think Linda Cho was trying to harness in this gown. Recall what I said earlier about the design elements of the gown: on the body of the dress, we see the almost feather-like filigree and jewel-work (accented with some gold beadwork), while the bust is covered with an homage to the Romanov double-headed eagle.

Doesn’t it look a tiny bit like the eagle has “shed” the feathers that float down the sides of the gown? Look at the way the eagle design “drips” down towards the open seam that reveals the brocade, jewels in every inch of the “tail.” To my mind, it’s a little like a phoenix that has shed its old feathers, burst into flame, and risen again up the bust of the gown as a new being. In many ways, that’s a great metaphor for Anastasia herself: she had an identity as the Grand Duchess, lost it, found it again, and then decided to renounce it in favor of another identity. Like the mythical firebird, she undergoes a cycle of birth and renewal over and over throughout the course of the musical.

I don’t know for certain that this is the effect Linda Cho was trying to harness with this gown, but it certainly seems plausible given how richly designed it is and how keen an eye for detail she possesses as a costume designer. This dress is rightfully the showpiece of the end of the musical, and the one that is designed to leave the audience with a key visual to take away from their enjoyment of the performance. It’s rich, heavy, and gorgeous from bust to floor and all points in between, and sits perfectly on the wearer.

Simply put, this is Linda Cho’s 2016-2017 pièce de résistance, a masterwork to end all masterworks, and one that deserves to be studied by fans of classic and modern design, the theatre, and the way in which these art forms intersect. It’s a joy to look at and a joy to analyze.

And that’s what costumery is about: bringing a sense of emotion and wonder to the viewer to complement their feelings regarding the performance onstage. In that regard, the royal red gown from Anastasia is a complete and total success.

[askmerriauthor]

There’s quite a lot wrong with “Agents of Mayhem”, I’m afraid, and it feels like fundamental problems as opposed to a lack of polish.  Full disclaimer: I haven’t played any of the SR games, so there’s no comparison from me between the two games.  Also, I played approximately one hour of AoM before giving it the boot, though further research and watching videos of late gameplay - including endgame - confirms my first impression for me.

One huge issue with AoM is that it has really poor design.  Its style is great - it has sleek and flashy down pat, and the environment is quite nice.  But the issue is that it’s just a glossy coat of paint over a whole lot of nothing else.  All flash, no substance.  In the above screenshots you can see two samples of the overworld in AoM.  It looks nice when you just glance at it rushing past you as you move around freely, but in the second shot you can see how flat and devoid of life it is when you stand still for a moment.  There’s nothing really in the setting to interact with outside of the “shoot things until a thing happens” control points and mission objectives.  The wandering civilian NPCs don’t really even have reactionary AI - the writing tries to be tongue-in-cheek about it by saying that the civilians are so used to superpowered antics that it’s blase to them now, but it’s just a weak cover-up for “the programmers couldn’t be assed to make the civilians behave in more than one or two states.”

Speaking of design, we have the meat of game play in the shooting.  You only really interact with the world via gun which, hey, it is a shooter.  But check those screenshots up top for a breakdown of the game’s UI.  It’s an absolute mess.  Those red boxes show UI elements that either constantly exist in your view or pop up regularly.  The purple box shows the space your character model takes up based on level of zoom and proximity to the surroundings.  That little green box in the middle?  That’s the sweet spot where focus of play - that is to say, where you shoot - is located.

See how densely cluttered and constricted the UI is?  That’s not even bringing in the bright, flashy special effects from various enemies and environmental explosions, or the default-but-toggleable “Blair Witch cameraman caught in an earthquake” camera shake.  Pair all that with a handful of identical enemies encountered in a handful of identical environments and it all becomes a pain to deal with.  This is a ghastly user interface.

Despite the whole effort to be quirky and unique, AoM feels extremely mediocre and derivative.  The menu UI structure reminded me quite a bit of Borderlands 2, while the after-mission reward screen rang so hard on my mind as being boosted from Overwatch that I was just waiting to hear that soft “Play of the Game” catchphrase.

I can pass on a lot of poor design choices if the writing is good though.  But AoM doesn’t offer anything there either.  It’s flat, one-dimensional characters flouncing around in a flat, one-dimensional story.  I get that they’re trying to go for a referential 80s G.I. Joe cartoon vibe, but they really miss the mark.  The dialogue is so bad it’s legitimately cringe-inducing, the plot line is a complete one-note with a “dramatic twist” at the end that is... well, just the plot itself.  Evil badguy wants the MacGuffin to do evil things, and the twist at the end is that he is driven insane and... wants the MacGuffin to do evil things.  That’s it.  And the very end of the game itself is a faux-cliffhanger that’s a blatant set-up for a sequel even though there’s no drama or desire to have the end question answered.

What about our ensemble of quirky protagonists, I hear you ask?  Notice that I don’t refer to them as heroes, because they’re not.  I guess they’re supposed to be charming anti-heroes, but the protags are unlikable jerks by and large.  If they’re not terrible people, they’re just bland tropes with legs.  The characters spout off repetitive one-liners non-stop with teeth-grating pseudo-slang like “See you on the flippity-flop!”.  The primary protag we’re first introduced to is “Hollywood” - your standard Johnny Cage “smug movie personality turned even more smug soldier” character who happily promotes war crimes because his boss pays him to do so.  Another protag is “Fortune” - among her first lines of dialogue is her gleefully announcing how excited she is to murder the target the team is being sent to assassinate.  Then there’s “Hardtack”, who’s just the Demoman from Team Fortress 2 who’s a sailor instead of a cyclopian Scotsman.  How about some of the villains?  There’s “Doctor Babylon”, who’s your standard-issue mad genius who wants to rule the world.  “Hammersmith” is your stock “engineering super-genius who makes weapons because he can”.  How about “Steeltoe”?  He’s a cyborg with no respect for organic life who is addicted to replacing more and more of his human body with technology to improve himself.  That is literally a trope in and of itself and a character archetype we’ve seen done to death.  Or “Gaunt” - a douchey pop star who uses hypnotic music to control his legions of fans and oh for the love of pot pies we’ve seen this character a million times already!  There is just nothing likable or intriguing about these characters to me.  They’re cardboard bland at best, and flat-out repugnant at worst.

So... yeah.  That’s pretty much my run on the matter.  Unappealing characters, a script that would be bland by 80s G.I. Joe standards, overtly unsatisfying paint-by-numbers game play, and a UI structure that makes actually playing the game headache-inducing.  I’ve never refunded a game or left a review - positive or negative - on a game before Agents of Mayhem.  But this one struck me as so shoddy a product that I was actually annoyed at myself for purchasing it in the first place, which urged me to get a full refund and leave a negative review on the item via Steam’s review system.

I see a lot of people still leave good reviews for it and are having fun with the game.  To them I say: good on you.  I may harp on pieces of media for what I see as flaws, but I’ll never tell someone they’re wrong for enjoying something even if I don’t like it.  I highly encourage anyone who reads this to remember that this is all just my own impressions on the game.  If it’s something you like or feel like you’d have fun with, more power to you.  But in the meantime, I’m going to be putting my refund to better use elsewhere.

[graftonway]

we shall fight

It’s been hours since the movie ended and I’ve taken the train home and listened to music and washed up and eaten grapes and scrolled through tumblr and still all I hear is this:

tickticktickticktickticktickticktick

You hear it throughout the film. It stays with you, seeping into your brain until you’re conditioned to it, until everything ticks and continues to, until you’re hyper-aware of rhythm and even phone notifications blinking, your typing, remind you of it. A friend described it perfectly as taking a long breath and not being able to breathe while holding it. The feeling that’s dropped to the bottom of my stomach hasn’t left yet; I’m still waiting for something to happen. I don’t even know what, but it’s stifling, tense, overwhelming. And that is all of Dunkirk in a nutshell.

This isn’t, strictly speaking, a war movie. Frankly I’m not even sure it’s a movie. It seems to be - or at least pretend towards being - everything: horror, thriller, documentary, symphony, cinematography, emotion, art. Much like the way it spans all three branches of the armed forces (land, sea, air), it tries to be everything at once. Perhaps in the hands of a lesser director this would have ended a disaster, but - and forgive me if I’m being crass with this comparison - Nolan, like Dynamo, plucks salvation from what could have been absolute catastrophe.

The first thing that you take away from Dunkirk is the sheer scale. Of course, as a history student, I’ve seen the photos of the beaches before, long unyielding lines that stretch as far as there is beach. Nolan does it slightly differently. Instead of one snaking, scattered queue there are multiple short ones, cinematic as anything and yet still overwhelming in number. It makes for a great introduction to the film, sets the stage for what’s to come. The aesthetic beauty that war sometimes begets versus the horrific reality it encompasses. The constant push and pull between the patience of the body of waiting men, never heard once to complain, and lack of time that’s played out again and again. Tiny, moving human parts and the weight of the unmentioned German war machine.

Nolan’s movies are always clever, though here the cleverness isn’t as immediately obvious as something like Inception. It’s a layer that you peel back and revel in as you watch. It’s something that builds up, in all its scattered parts and broken pieces, pieces that you collect and store until they come together and make sense. Take the premise of time here, for instance. Words on screen that are always meant to provide context do the opposite here: ‘the mole / one week’, ‘the sea / one day’, ‘the air / one hour’ make no sense to the viewer as they settle in. But all it takes is for one shot - Cillian Murphy’s face in the dark on a boat, straight after his appearance in the bright sunshine on a different vessel - to realise what it means: the action is all taking place in a different time scale. And that moment hits you like a punch in the gut, even though it’s the most simple of revelations. A perfectly positioned callback. Without even knowing why you begin to watch the film differently, all because of the buildup that explodes with one miniscule yet incredibly powerful detail.

It’s this same kind of buildup that squeezes itself into the music. The movie lurches between sound from the get go - the quiet of walking down the street to the startling pops of gunfire, the brief moment before the torpedo hits to the jarring explosion. War sets in here without a single line of expository dialogue, the way it can weigh down other films (the “war is hell, boys” trope that even Hacksaw Ridge was guilty of). Instead all we get is the constant, jarring soundtrack, so loud and in your face that you are drawn into all of the violence and spectacular chaos (something that the multiple timelines also lend themselves to). This builds and builds until it ends, abruptly, twice: firstly, when the Little Ships come into view, and secondly, on the train that Tommy and Alex crumple into. The suddenness of the way it ends is as jarring as any explosion or loud dramatic orchestral note, all the more sharp for its absence. We get sweeping, nostalgic strings over the view of the flotilla, and pure silence (combined with the same sweeping music later) when Tommy falls into the seat.

Which is why so much weight comes to rest upon just these two scenes - the ships and the ending - and why I want to talk about those in particular. It will come as no surprise that they’re the two I cried at; as a kid I read about the Dunkirk spirit and the Churchill speech, and they both have special meaning for me. Add to that me just being a complete and utter sap for nostalgia, sentiment, painfully obvious emotional manipulation.

There’s enough emotional impact in the story of the Little Ships themselves that any film could pull it off with suitable heroic payoff, but it’s just done so very well here. The ticking of the pressure cooker and the fear of death instantly vanishes, replaced by the heartwarming, exceedingly British orchestra. For there is some measure of nationalism (I hesitate to say propaganda, but) with this, as with all war movies; it’s an unavoidable trope, yet one handled so well here. It’s muted - the only flag is the one in the small corner of a larger blue flag, blurred in the background of Mr. Dawson’s boat. Bolton (a place name in and of itself) calls out to some of them, asking where they’re from. And in the end the boats go by an approximation of Dover. But the real focus is on the humanity of the people who came to save the troops. No dialogues or stars in these scenes: just civilians, just ‘home’. Some reviews were critical about the lack of character names and the like, but I think that was done intentionally for this reason, to demonstrate how humanity is about being and not knowing. With the lack of the tickticktick in the background Dunkirk’s first message is, ironically, hammered through: in a movie so packed with tension, it isn’t actually the tension that’s important, but how we escape it. Only later do you get introduced to some of the characters’ personal lives - Dawson is so determined because his son died - but that doesn’t matter, because the heroism is already there. If the movie is a breath you’ve been holding then the Little Ships are the moment you breathe out.

Character development is hardly present in the movie, which makes it all the more impressive that we still manage to feel for and care for every single one of them; I think this is one of the greatest achievements of the film, in that Nolan somehow gets to the heart of war and the rawest of our emotions. Too many war movies get bogged down in character development, the false belief that you need to know the character in order to feel for them shifting the focus away from showing actual war itself. But Nolan understands this, and makes the choice not to identify his characters. The three Mole soldiers look the same; the French soldier’s real name is never given; and Tommy’s name is a generic epithet for all British soldiers. They have no personal characteristics at all. And yet, when Gibson is drowning inside the boat, your heart seizes; you want him, desperately, to get out. Here Dunkirk takes on the shape of the great war novels, like the nameless French soldier in All Quiet On The Western Front. This is the horror of war - that everyone dies - and the real way to experience it is being frightened of death itself, not just fleshed-out characters you have come to feel for dying.

In fact there’s barely any dialogue in the movie, either, except for necessary communication; Bolton is the most heavy-handed in exposition, but otherwise words are limited to observations about the tide, speculation on target practice, explanation for locking the door. Which is why everything that isn’t technical carries so much weight. Collins’s breezy ‘afternoon’ regardless of his near-death experience might be played for laughs but it’s also a conscious remarking on the stereotypical British spirit. One that struck me deeply is Peter’s ‘he’s fine’ to the Shivering Soldier (or something to that effect) - in just one phrase the dilemma of shell shock, the question of blame, and the soldier’s innocence are perfectly captured. But my favourite, of course, as someone weaned on Churchill, is the speech.

As a twelve, thirteen year old I memorised that speech, word for word, all the way till the end. I’ve listened to it many times. And I can’t even begin to explain how emotional I got when Tommy began to read it out and all the cuts from each time period began to intersect with each other. If ever the movie was disparate (and I don’t think it was, and I don’t agree with people who did) it came together at the end, each thread drawn together by possibly the most iconic, recognisable historical device. The sense of unity, of destiny, of a swelling, growing belief in the job left. The two last images of the film - the burning spitfire and Tommy’s face - cleave so perfectly into each other; I don’t think I’ve felt that kind of breathtaking momentousness from an ending for a very, very long time. Farrier gets captured but he’s also arguably the biggest hero of the film, saving countless numbers of people on the beach that hour. He ends up captured and his plane ends up burning, but the Germans didn’t burn it - he did, and in doing so it becomes a symbol of defiance in the face of defeat. We are always reminded that this is a defeat. But that doesn’t signal futility and devastation.

One of the reasons I say that this isn’t a war movie is because the enemy is never really there. Besides the last scene, where Farrier is captured, you don’t see any German soldiers (and even those are blurred out). That gives you the impression that this isn’t about triumph, in any way, but about survival, as the old man in the end so neatly put it. All we did was survive. That’s enough. Many horrors of war are depicted here. Drowning in the locked hull of a torpedoed ship, waiting patiently on a packed bridge for Messerschmits to strafe you. Violence, while not graphic, is never shied away from. Tension and impending doom is built masterfully, whether through Collins’ helplessness watching Farrier or Bolton closing his eyes to wait for death. But while you get the feeling that it is inescapable, you never get the feeling that it is insurmountable, and that is what Dunkirk is about, really. My major qualm with the movie before I watched it was how they were going to turn it into a triumphant, gun-waving kind of thing when it was a defeat. But it’s not about defeating the Germans, because as Churchill said wars are not won by evacuation. Not even about the end of a battle given the continuous references to what is yet to come. It’s about what matters most to us, what the ‘Dunkirk’ used in modern British parlance now refers to: human spirit and endeavor. Battling on.

Dunkirk is probably not the greatest war movie I’ve ever watched (although that is a topic for another time). It has, of course, its problems. I’m not sure how much credence the lack of poc claim has as I haven’t had the time to go look it up yet, but other tiny things niggle here and there. Yet one of the major criticisms I’ve heard about this movie is that it’s too intense and action focused and, of all things, I think that that’s the least concerned anyone should be about it. You can’t capture all of war in a single movie. You can barely capture certain experiences. If other movies are allowed to develop other aspects, like character and the mundanity of war, why shouldn’t Dunkirk be allowed to dig deep into the terrifying tension and uncertainty that is so fundamentally a part of it (being shelled while in foxholes is another example that comes to mind)? There is emotion in intensity, and humanity is found everywhere. Even in the most painful, most terrible of times. 

There’s a trope in Waiting For Godot about the weary, fallible hero, the human struggling to create meaning and stay alive in the most downtrodden noble sense. It’s a trope I’ve always thought applies to the way the British view themselves and certainly something that applies here, weary soldiers and civilians alike picking themselves up with the haunted promise in Tommy’s face. Youthful and yet tattered, dark and hollow yet with a measure of steel that lends backbone to that famous line: we shall go on to the end.

[joshtheoverlander]

Power Rangers RPM Review

Okay, so this is one in a line of Power Rangers reviews I plan on doing. It won't be in any particular order. I watch whichever season I want. A big round of thanks goes to Netflix for having literally every series so far, excluding Ninja Steel, but I think that one's still airing. I know Linkara did his History of Power Rangers series and if you want, you can go ahead and watch that. It's really good, trust me. I just thought I'd give my own two-cents on things. It won't be quite as detailed as Linkara's thing, but it'll be my review, so whatever. It's always worth noting that I might get awkward in places, as I'm no professional. Anyways, we're starting off with my favorite Power Rangers season so far: RPM. Made to be the final Power Rangers series, the show takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world. The planet has been ravaged by an evil computer virus known as Venjix, attacking the humans and animals with an army of killer robots. So basically PG Skynet and Terminators. I kid, the show is actually the darkest in the franchise so far, depicting instances of mafia connections, human enslavement, deprivation of one's humanity, and death. After all, this is the apocalypse. Every single place on Earth has been turned into a lifeless shell aside from one city. There would be now way around genociding 95% of all life on Earth with that kind of premise without making yourself like one of those idiot parents who just wants to protect their precious little snowflakes, so I'm already happy. Said city is Corinth, a place protected from Venjix by a domed barrier that keeps him and his attack bots out...for the most part. His special bots are capable of slipping in, but that's where the Power Rangers come in. As with every season of Power Rangers, they fight off his creations to protect the people. The Rangers this time around are some of my favorites, mostly Dilan and Ziggy, the Black and Green Rangers respectively. Especially together. The two have a friendship that you just can't help but love, especially when Ziggy points things out and Dilan more often than not has his back even when the other Rangers think he's an idiot or just writes him off. Not to mention Ziggy is the best thing in this show. He's easily most likely to be fan favorite as he's a wellspring of comedy and light-heartedness in this world of death, pointing out things that just aren't right or things that seem ridiculous, which gets us onto the topic of the humor of this season. Some of the humor is your typical Power Rangers humor, but as this was originally intended to be the final season of the Power Rangers, they threw in a bunch of self-referential humor, poking fun at the tropes present in every season such as the zords and the vocal call-out when they morph. In one episode, when the rangers are saved by these mysterious figures, the idea that they could be ghosts pops up, of which the Yellow Ranger writes off for being ridiculous of which Ziggy replies with, "You drive a giant yellow teddy bear! I drive a giant green fish!" The other Rangers aren't quite my cup of tea like Dilan and Ziggy are, since those two are just the greatest of bros. First, the "original" three. The Red Ranger, Scott, is the son of General Truman, the man in charge of keeping Corinth safe, however the two aren't quite on the best of terms. Their relationship for most of the show seems to be business only, which is explained in Scott's backstory episode, Ranger Red, where it's explained that Scott's older brother, a fighter pilot, died trying to fight off Venjix's forces so that the last remaining living humans can make it inside Corinth. Since then, their relationship has been strained to one of absolute formality between a soldier and his senior officer, causing Scott to want to try and prove himself to his father. He's a bit temperamental and brash, but he overall proves himself a capable ranger. Next is the Blue Ranger, Flynn. The son of an engineer who grew up trying to be a hero to others in need. This led to a lot of misfortune as he grew into an adult, including a number of lost jobs, one of which he lost from ripping off the movie Braveheart. Did I mention he's Scottish? When Venjix attacked, he found his calling when he saved a bunch of people by hijacking a bus and going into the fray to pick up several civilians being attacked. His character isn't much, but I liked him. At least his character wasn't as minor as the next person on our list. The Yellow Ranger, Summer. Summer was the daughter of a wealthy family know as the Landsdowns. She was quite the stereotypical stuck-up bitch, even going so far as to use her butler as a footstool. However, when the apocalypse began and she was abandoned by everyone, including her so-called friends, her butler came and helped her, leading her to eventually ask him why he bothered with her when she's been nothing but horrible to him. He tells her that he knows that there was more to her than what she's demonstrated this far, and that he's waiting to meet the real Summer. One day, however, a bunch of Grinders, the foot soldiers of Venjix's army, attack, killing the butler and leaving Summer on her own. When she arrives at Corinth, she picks up on a distress call about a crashed fighter jets and takes a motorcycle to help the pilot, who happened to be Scott. Once again, after her backstory episode, there's not much else development. She's more or less the "nice Ranger" and Dilan's love interest. Now for the Rangers that we love, Black and Green. First the Black Ranger, Dilan. Dilan is the one the show focuses on, so it's safe to say he's got more development than others. He rode into Corinth when he likely had nowhere else to go, but was apprehended due to the fact that he was a Hybrid, basically cyborgs with Venjix technology in their bodies. He can't remember anything about his past aside from the fact that he had a sister. His only lifeline to his past is a pocket watch that, when wound up with a key, plays a song like a music box. He's a bad boy, more or less and is the least likely one to just go along with whatever the Rangers do without question. Ziggy, on the other hand, our wonderful Green Ranger, is a nervous, yet charismatic and optimistic person. At the start of the season when the Rangers are introduced, he claims to be a big fan of them, yet is usually the one to point out the oddities that comes with being one, like the way their Zords look. At first he was cowardly, ready to shrink down and avoid danger, but he's still a good person. In his backstory episode, Ranger Green, he was a member of the mafia, more or less, and after the apocalypse, he was given a job to do, which was to deliver medical supplies to the gang Meetup, but instead took them to an orphanage where a number of the children were suffering illness. The mafia boss Fresno Bob (Yes, I know) was, of course, mad, so a man in the mafia who was friends with Ziggy snuck him out of Corinth. However, as we saw in the first episode, Ziggy came back since there was nowhere in the world that he could go to and he had better chances being in Corinth than out in the wasteland. He does gain courage and even skill in being a Ranger in time, but he remains the loveable fan favorite all throughout. Now every series of Power Rangers has those new "special" Rangers, at least that's how I see them, and what we get in that regard are Gem and Gemma, the Gold and Silver Rangers, two twins that started out outside of Corinth and fighting Venjix's forces with all they've got. They're incredibly excitable and love explosions and they also often do a finish-each-others-sentences kind of thing. Fans aren't quite as fond of these two which is understandable, as they can get kind of annoying from time to time. However, they're personalities are, as explained by Linkara, due to the fact that they never mentally matured and so are basically man-children. I'll get into the cause with the next character, Doctor K. Doctor K is they're "mentor" for this show, but of course Ziggy has a thought about that, wondering how she could be their mentor when she's younger than them. Unlike Gem and Gemma, Doctor K is incredibly anti-social, an introvert to the extreme. At the start of the series, she never communicated with the Rangers face-to-face, resorting to pulling an L and only talking to them through monitors and with a voice filter disguising her voice. However once Dilan brings it up and takes a big issue with it as it displays and could cause a lack of trust, she finally shows herself to the Rangers. At first, she's incredibly harsh, especially to Ziggy, but as the series progresses we see her try to change and open up. Throughout the series up to around the halfway point, she refers to the Rangers as the Rangers and not by their names, but she tries to change that. There's even an awkward hug in her development. Eventually she manages to address the Rangers by their names...except Ziggy, to his dismay. This is due to an extension of her personal issues. When Doctor K was a child, she was taken away by a think tank known as Alphabet Soup because she was a natural genius and was convinced that the sun was harmful to her, thus keeping her from trying to leave. As the years roll by, she regresses into an introvert until one day, the program introduces her to Gem and Gemma, who developed into extremely extroverted people. The two makes friends with Doctor K instantly, but Doctor K doesn't quite make friends with them until much later. One day, when she sees a butterfly, she follows it to a window where light is pouring in and realizes she's been lied to and plans to escape. When Gem and Gemma come by, she tells them she plans to escape by using a virus program named Venjix that she created to sabotage Alphabet Soup, but on the day she starts it up, the men of the program come and attempt to take her away, prompting her to try and install a firewall to keep Venjix from getting into the world beyond Alphabet Soup and fails. When the place begins to go to hell, Gem and Gemma disappear to go grab the Gold and Silver Morphers and Doctor K soon assumes them dead. After that she stopped opening up to people for a long time, keeping herself distant from others to protect herself. However, as stated, she does manage to slowly open up to the others and even manages to call the Rangers by their names except Ziggy. At first you might assume it's because she hates him, but as things soon progress you realize that she distances herself for longer from him because he's a bit different from the others. Finally, let's discuss the villains! Venjix is an intimidating big bad. He's ruthless and cold and relentless, though it's kinda funny how striking his stationary form is to that of HAL 9000. He takes on the Rangers himself multiple times later on in the series, showing that if his generals and attack bots can't deal with the Rangers, then he might as well. Speaking of his Generals, they don't do much in all honesty. Other than Tenaya-7, a cyborg used to infiltrate the domed city of Corinth, the generals don't get much time to do anything. I can't remember any of their names, they're so scarce. The foot soldiers this time around are fairly nice, though they don't receive any upgrade aside from one specific episode and then they never do it again. It's a touch disappointing, but never quite as much as the generals. The story soon reaches a point where Dilan finds out that Tenaya is a Hybrid and his sister and attempts to contact her. Eventually she joins them and attempts to infiltrate Venjix's headquarters and succeeds, but are soon driven out. Tenaya is then soon taken back by Venjix and taken control of to ensure she doesn't betray him again. All the while there's a subplot about how the Venjix virus is inside Dilan and is spreading and that once it reaches a certain percentage, he'll be susceptible to mind control, which he soon is, but thankfully Doctor K, in that time, had begun developing a cure, which Dilan, in his last moments of free will, uses to expel the virus from him, and then uses on Tenaya too. The show all builds to a final confrontation with Venjix in his ultimate body, and ends when Gem and Gemma literally drop a building top of him. The threat of Venjix is finally gone and the world will finally be open to restoration, though it would take quite a while. The show ended on a cliffhanger that was created to ask Disney for a second season, but it never happened. Power Rangers RPM is my favorite series so far and I highly recommend it to any Power Rangers fan out there to go watch it if you haven't seen it yet. Trust me, it's great. I love the characters and the plot and premise, and I love the humor. It does suffer some flaws like the change in direction with the story after the original writer got canned, the incredibly near-pointless generals and a few character issues like Gem and Gemma's personalities and a distinct lack of character development for Flynn and Summer, but it's also one of, if not the most mature Power Rangers series so far. One thing that irks me, however is that they chose the wrong theme song to use for the show. It's this grungy theme song that's few in lyrics, but if you look up Power Rangers RPM alternate theme song, you'll understand just how big they fucked up in that regard. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this or at least found it tolerable. Next time I'll be discussing Power Rangers Dino Charge.