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existentialmagazine · 1 year ago

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Existential Magazine’s September Music Roundup

With the month coming to a close, we’re sharing just a handful of our favourite new releases we’ve discovered this July! Sit back, put on our New Music Friday playlist and spend a few minutes enjoying fresh new tunes hand-picked by us.

Seoul Metro - Anywhere

The Manchester-based artist Seoul Metro has embraced his pop influences within his debut release ‘Anywhere’, a glowing indie-pop twinkling of sound. Led in with steady drum beats and glowing synth, the sound is immediately established to be upbeat and infectious. Fading back, tapping drums and intermittent backing sound effects litter the verse, all the whole Seoul Metro’s vocals add a depth to every soaring sound. The chorus absolutely explodes into colour, dancing through vibrant synth key pops and continued percussion, all the while Seoul Metro airily flows into a higher range, making for a heavenly slice of mesmerising lyrics. An emphatic guitar riff glides through the concluding heightening of sound, showing off a whir of energy and rock-based spirit you just can’t get enough of. Infusing stylings from an array of genres, ‘Anywhere’ is utterly addictive in how it grows and develops, filtering through indie spirit, rock grit and pop hooks you can’t get enough of. Writing of yearning for a lover and worldwide travels, Seoul Metro sings lines like ‘let’s go to anywhere, I’d run away to anywhere with you’ that display a real urge to love and be loved, while running through picturesque scenes without a care in the world. Other lyrics like ‘I don’t wanna work no more, I just want to be adored’ emphasise the desire many hold within to live life to the fullest, escaping the cyclical capitalist agenda for a life rooted in so much more. At two and a half minutes in length, this astounding new anthem is one sure to wrap you around its fingers and leave you yearning for more, and we just can’t wait to see what’s next for Seoul Metro.

Love Ghost - Snap

Continuing from their string of stylistically dynamic singles this year, the alternative force to be reckoned with Love Ghost are now returning with yet another fiery sure-to-be hit ‘Snap.’ Reminiscent of acts like CORPSE and Scarlxrd, this new shift in sound from the emo rap and pop-punk blenders shows something a little more diverse, as well as collaborating with the Mexican artist Chzter for even more unique flair. Conversing around a dark trap sound, ‘Snap’ falls into place immediately with distinct electronic beats and distorted backing vocals, before gravelly spoken vocals that lead things into the first verse with a gritty, snarled edge. Building up into more layers of scattered beats and two vocal layers, ‘Snap’ plays out between cleanly sung lines and an undertone of hoarseness, almost seeming to parallel those darker thoughts we all carry within but try to bury beneath a facade of doing well. Chzter soon takes over for a segment, flowing through her own lyrical mix of both English and Spanish with an unparalleled angst and confidence, delivering lines with a flair you can’t get enough of. Between addictive pop-esque hooks and more punky tones, Love Ghost are always here to break down the barriers of genre and prove that artists can succeed by simply opening themselves to whatever feels right. Lyrically, the track runs through darkened themes of battling through depression but ultimately transforming into someone you’d always wanted to be, achieving new heights and escaping from the rut of mental illnesses that made it feel intangible to reach. Defeating that part of yourself you no longer recognise or resonate with, ‘Snap’ is a freeing, cathartic anthem of sorts, giving you that nudge of closure to a chapter preferred to be forgotten.

Dom Malin - Fever

Returning to the scene, the singer-songwriter and indie-pop gem of an upcomer Dom Malin has just shared his latest glowing single ‘Fever’, a slice of heaven wrapped between nearly three minutes of instrumentals. An infectious electric guitar riff and warm strums lead into the sensual experience that is ‘Fever’, an opening that’s filled with a positive groove you can’t help but immediately be hooked on. Gliding into the first verse with the addition of steady drum beats and Dom’s tender vocals enriched by his lower-toned emotive encasing, ‘Fever’ delivers upon a sound that’s absolutely radiant and urges you sing along before you even know the words yet. The chorus rather originally finds itself scarcely changing in instrumentals whatsoever, instead placing a focus on the atmospheric sparkles that follow it in the form of thudding drum beats, pulsating synth-esque beats and layered backing vocals. The bridge takes a more climactic turn, thriving through a short rock and roll reminiscent guitar riff before fading down into drum clashes and a synth haze, all the while Dom’s introspective lyricism and haunting vocals guide you through. With such a catchy patchwork of sounds, Dom has penned a narrative that’s just as passionately-infused, writing of the intoxicating pull of attraction and desire. Led in with the title defining lyric ‘I’ve got a fever, a hot, cold sweat’, Dom makes it very clear this romance is one that’s gotten him swept off his feet, consuming him both physically and emotionally. If you’re after a release that’ll leave you feeling good and bursting with your own hopeless romantics, look no further than ‘Fever’ for that sweet release.

Eva Westphal - Adult

Since beginning writing music at only age thirteen, the pop and folk blender Eva Westphal has since made her mark on the music scene with continually hard-hitting releases, and her newest ‘Adult’ is no exception. Tenderly led in with acoustic guitar strums, intermittent and subdued violin strings, backing vocals and distant spoken words, ‘Adult’ captures a real sense of nostalgia just in its introduction alone, like you’re in the neighbouring room to your childhood self watching things unfold. As the first verse glides in with these continued gorgeous instruments, Eva’s soaring vocals lace around their delicate poignance and protrude with her own elegance, cautiously capturing a sensitive realness in every haunting word left lingering in the air. The chorus only further captivates you, floating around more resonant violin strings and heavenly backing vocals in a way you can only achingly stir within, feeling both a warm comfort and intricate pain all at once. With a message that’s perhaps heavier than you’d ever imagine, Eva writes a letter to her teenage self dedicated to survivors of abuse, pouring her heart and soul into what she wishes she could do for her younger self to feel safe and loved like she deserved to be. That sense of solace and familiarity flows the entire way through, leaving the track feeling like the embrace of someone when you need it most, while still peering into darker avenues of experiences no one ever deserves to go through: ‘when you need somebody older to tell you it’s not your fault, I’ll be that adult.’ Bittersweet is perhaps the best way to describe it, as Eva leaves you aching through a narrative journey that’s not always easy to hear, but ever so important to listen along to the poetically written words of.

Bvrden - Indigo

Hailing from London, the alternative-rock duo Bvrden have found themselves taking listeners on dynamic musical evolutions since their 2020 beginnings, now sharing their latest heartfelt slice of reality in ‘Indigo.’ Setting the pacing immediately, Bvrden delves headfirst into the thunderous sound of ‘Indigo’ with a pounding drum beat sure to get you on your feet and your heart racing. Soon complemented by emphatic guitar strums, the soundscape falls into place as the real slice of indie-rock it strives to be. The first verse fades out of the guitar strums, taking instead a quickly paced riff and bright intermittent strums into the background instead, a more subtle speeding dominance all the while the staple drums remain centre stage. Bvrden’s lower-toned vocalist complements the sound perfectly, capturing an emotionally indicative edge in his more downbeat delivery, giving the perfect vocals for an anthemic tune to thrive off of. The chorus only continues to rise through this dynamic evolution, growing into an atmospheric lacing of heightened vigorous guitar strums and thudding drums while Bvrden’s vocalist dances through a slightly higher range that completely switches-up the track’s vibe. The second verse only continues to shift your expectations, tenderly lingering in an acoustic guitar riff and occasional reverberated electric guitar strings before the pacing picks back up with gargantuous momentum. Writing about fighting for your purpose and finding the strength to build and follow your desired path no matter how much others and life get in the way, ‘Indigo’ journey through a real passionate declaration of finding oneself and learning to trust yourself above all else. Chasing your dreams regardless of the judgement and fears of others, ‘Indigo’ is that reminder to never let anyone halter you in your path to success, as you know deep down what you’re capable of.

OpenTAB - WYA

Debuting their first ever single after five years together and a mass of live show performances, the up-coming alternative pop and rock blenders OpenTAB bear everything on their sleeve in ‘WYA.’ Dreamily led in with an echoey electric guitar riff, acoustic guitar strums and haunting airy backing vocals, the introduction alone sets up an atmosphere you can’t help but feel you’re floating within, lost high above in the clouds. Lightly picking up as the first verse cascades in, their vocalist soars into the soundscape with his own tender delivery, at times complemented by layers of backing vocals for an even further ethereal effect. Soothing drum beats also accompany the sound moving forward, pushing the momentum along but maintaining the song’s delicacy with an ease. The chorus shifts in tone as the track falls into darker notes, deep bass twangs and a newfound riff, a surprisingly downbeat moment you can’t help but ache along with. The repeated chorus hook ‘where you at?’ only further adds to this, leaving you caught up in the band’s pained narrative that journeys through fears of abandonment. Exploring difficult themes of the uncertainties of life, OpenTAB find themselves terrified of waking up and losing everything, unable to comprehend such a blindsided betrayal and the aftermath of losing everything without closure to piece you back together. This evidently hurt story desperately seeks answers throughout, asking ‘how the hell did this happen, we were so good?’, leaving you feeling every word of their heartache. Yet the sound utterly contrasts their every line, offering you a comforting mesh of indie tones to get lost within while their narrative finds you lingering in more thought than you’d ever expect.

OK PANDA - Echoes

With their first glowing new single since the release of their debut EP last year, the Brussels-based pop rock quintet OK PANDA now share ‘Echoes’ for the world to hear. Delicately rooted in more of a folk-pop, paired-back sound, ‘Echoes’ right away entangles you within its branches of warmth and simplicity, capturing the same stunning resonance as shimmering lake water on a summers day. Between an introduction of a crackling record-players hum, a bright electric guitar riff and subtle drum taps, ‘Echoes’ immediately sets a tone of nostalgic whimsicality, a haunting but uplifting sound to get lost within. The verse settles into more toned-down drum patters and intermittent keyboard keys before lightening back up with emphatic acoustic guitar strums, electric guitar twinkles and bass twangs, an ever-growing layering of instruments that captures the same tumultuous, never-resting feeling of life. Their vocalist offers a familiar radiance in his every word, dancing through the sound with a lower-toned range that offers seeping essences of deeper emotions. The flowing guitar riff feels like the core of the track’s euphoria though, laced in the most vibrant of evolving tones and strings before a thunderous climax shows off every instrumental’s powerful performance. With an interwoven lyrical message of the same empowering sense, ‘Echoes’ speaks of an ode to freedom, a deep burning desire to break free from the mundane cyclicality of life and explore what it truly has to offer. As we often fall into routines that almost seem to cement us down into their fixtures, OK PANDA are here to remind you that it’s never too late to chase those dreams and make those memories, you’ll only regret not doing it: ‘do you relate to those who try to leave?’

Keep For Cheap - Lakehouse

Uniquely blending indie, country, rock, and pop, the up-coming band Keep For Cheap have been finding themselves in tune with music that resonates deeply within, captivating audiences with stories that both make them feel at home and leave them aching all at once. Their newest offering ‘Lakehouse’ is a perfect example, longing for a place that no longer feels like home. In lines like ‘in my friend’s families cabin’ , this distant memory from the past finds itself tugging at your own long-lost past, reminding yourself of those who once felt like family that couldn’t feel more like a stranger in adulthood. Continuing ‘when I go back up there now it aches as that same old place, same water… I seek its vitality’ , the yearning for youth poignantly shines through, whether that be a carefree childish attitude or to relive those moments that once were all over again. Lead in by enchanting natural sounds from a pouring stream, ducks quacking, birds tweeting and subdued voices, ‘Lakehouse’ right away sets a scene of this tale lost in time that you can’t help but feel nostalgically entwined within even though you never lived it yourself. Building through textural acoustic guitar strums and an airily gliding female vocals, the intimacy of ‘Lakehouse’ is never once lost, transporting you to a place filled with utter serenity. As things push forward, thudding beats soon join into the mix along with drawn-out guitar string plucks, all building up the multitude of layers that make ‘Lakehouse’ feel just as warm and inviting as its dainty storytelling leaves you feeling. Things only further grow and evolve as the song propels onwards, climactically rising into intense instrumental heights and addictive clapping beats before closing out with a more sincere moment of calm. If you’ve ever longed for music that takes you someplace else, visually guiding you through journeys that aren’t your own and yet feel so entwined with experiences you one lived, then Keep For Cheap are a band you’ll feel warmly welcomed by.

Alice Pisano - Back To Her

Pairing an uplifting dance-along sound with a song delving into the complexities of love and heartbreak isn’t an easy feat, yet the synth-pop upcomer Alice Pisano finds herself doing just that in her latest offering ‘Back To Her.’ From bright piano keys and steady beats that open up the release, there’s an immediate sense of intimacy as well as a driving energy that pushes things forward, leaving your heartbeat racing for what’s to come. Things continue to build as the beat picks up in pacing, all the while Alice’s soaring vocals glide through a floaty delivery that’s emotive and self-assured all at once. Climaxing for the choruses high, her vocals lift into a much more powerful range and confidence, all the while the track absolutely bursts into colour. From a multitude of layered beats, scattered synth pops, dreamy backing vocals and more, this heightened moment offers a much-needed cathartic outburst for an otherwise bittersweet realisation of deserving better. As Alice writes of falling for someone who’s just not over their ex, she sings ‘you’ve got one foot in the past… I should step back, move on’ , acknowledging the truth of the situation and yet the unwillingness to let go. Continuing ‘I’m falling for you’, it’s clear she’s torn between head and heart, knowing she’s deserving of someone all in for her and yet she finds herself yearning for this one person alone. From the track’s catchy sound to the message buried within, ‘Back To Her’ leaves its mark on you within its three minute journey of emotion, reminding you never to settle for less but that you’re certainly not alone in finding yourself wanting someone still longing for what they’ve lost.

Moon Worm - 9/10

Closing out our Roundup for the month with a dreamily atmospheric soundscape, Moon Worm find themselves capturing the same kind of bliss in ‘9/10’ that you’d only ever find above the clouds, a floating resonance and a sincere freedom as far as the eye can see. With deeply reverberated guitar strums, prominent bass twangs, steady beats and dazzling synth, the hazy mesh that is ‘9/10’ offers an escape to someplace else. Soaking lucidity and ethereality into his enchanting layerings of sound, Moon Worm patches together an experience that’s comparable to nothing other than the universes’ grandeur, a sonically powerful journey that echoes between worlds and loops between your thoughts. As the heavily electronically-ladened, resonating vocals glide through the sound, ‘9/10’ only further pushes its cascading aura upon you to behold. But moments of more intimate drawn-out synth keys bring you back to earth, a short moment of utter tranquility needed even in the most vibrant palettes. As Moon Worm pens a desire to escape normality and see the world, ‘9/10’ rings out with a mesh of internal dialogues that almost overshadow one another, clouding between the dreams of adventure and the fear of leaving something behind in the process. Accepting that permission to move on to bigger things and let go of what once was, ‘9/10’ is perhaps that reminder we all need to reach new heights and live our days to the fullest: ‘give it all, see what happens next.’

Give a listen to these songs and more in our New Music Friday playlist this week, or see our Roundup Recap playlist for every song previously featured in one of our monthly roundups that you might have missed!

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

// This coverage was created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator.

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boognish-worshipper · 3 years ago

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Midnight City AU

it took me forever to decide where to go with this chapter and i was literally getting fed up editing it 😭 i’ve been so busy with all the chaos goin on in my life rn too so yeah writing’s been feeling delayed over all but i decided to just finalize this one for rn and uhhh sorry if it seems funky or shortttt

//Chapter 3: Vanished

The next day, Trevor went back to Sterling Lake Park, after spending the night at Wade’s. He agreed to meet up with him there later, walking around the park with his earbuds in. As he threw himself down on his usual bench, he settled on listening to his usual playlist of his favorite songs. He scrolled through nosedivr once again, taking a photo of the lake. It was foggy, and the thick air sat atop the water. He liked when it was like that. A sturdy drumbeat thumped in his ears, making him feel whole. He paused it briefly, just to change it to a different song that was even louder, but with the lack of music he could now hear the crunch of gravel not too far away. He thought he told Wade to come later on? He looked up from his phone, pulling out an earbud. It was the guy from yesterday.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Where’s Amanda?” He asked, glancing around.

“Uhh she’s.. not here today. I kinda came to see if you were here. I wanna get to know more people at this park if I’m gonna hang ‘round here more I guess.”

“But she doesn’t like me?”

“She don’t gotta know.”

“Well aren’t you Boyfriend of the Year.”

“Oh uh, we aren’t dating yet.”

“Thought she was your girl though.”

“She is, she is. But it’s nothing serious. Not yet. And I don’t know what happened between you guys but you don’t seem that bad, so if I wanna talk to you that’s more of a her problem than me.”

“Huh.”

Today Michael wore an eCola shirt, which was obviously made to resemble their old logo, with blue jeans. He had on a pair of red sneakers this time to match the color of the shirt. They looked slightly newer, compared to the pair he wore yesterday. He dressed nice for such a basic style. Trevor on the other hand, threw on an old, frayed Love Fist t-shirt, and messy jeans. He wore a different pair of boots, some kind of knockoff of a popular name brand. A pair of purple lensed circular glasses sat on his head, the nose pieces caught in his hair.

“So.. uh. Mind if I sit there?”

“Not like I own the bench or anything, go right ahead.”

He cautiously sat next to Trevor, hands in his lap. Trevor started one of his other playlists up again, settling on a mix of Paramore and Green Day. He left an earbud out, just so he wouldn’t be completely rude. He mindlessly scrolled, occasionally looking back at the lake or casting a sideways glance at Michael, who was looking at him funny. Sighing, he paused his music, putting his earbuds away.

“What.”

“I.. nothin’ man. I just, I dunno. What is the point of coming here?”

“It’s a public fuckin’ park man.”

“I know, but you said that you don’t even really like the people here, so what’s the point?”

“There is no ‘point’ to it. I just like time to myself is all. These guys don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. They only start trouble when they see fit.”

“Ah… I see? What were you listening to by the way?”

Trevor stifled a groan, not really wanting to talk to the guy when he had time to freely plot his scheme.

“Pop punk shit. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh, no? I thought punk wasn’t supposed to be popular. Or fit in. Or whatever.”

“That’s merely the ideology, which I do follow, dear Michael. I just like the sound I guess. You know Paramore?”

“Not really. I don’t listen to that stuff much.”

“Then what the fuck do you listen to?”

“Not sure if it has a genre per say, but I like that song Radioactive goin’ around? Songs that sound like that I guess.”

“You like Imagine Dragons?”

“That’s what they’re called?”

Trevor could only stare at him. Was this guy living under a rock?

“Uh.. yeah. Y’know what- never mind, what else do you listen to?”

“80s music?”

No wonder this guy was unaware of who’s popular now.

“Amanda’s been trying to get me into groups like the 1975. I actually kinda like them.”

Trevor rolled his eyes.

“Of course she did.”

“They’re not that bad to be honest. She likes that weird alternative shit.”

“Yeah, I know. By the way, there is a name for that genre. Indie rock. Can’t stand the stuff.”

“How come?”

“You know, you ask a lotta fuckin’ questions.”

“I’m just tryna understand this shit here. I ain’t in the loop of all these trends.”

“Well, for your information I just find the style to be too slow and whiny for my taste. I like fast, upbeat, wild stuff.”

“Any recommendations then? I wanna impress Amanda by at least knowing one artist off that nosedivr thing she goes on.”

He raised a brow, not really wanting to share anything else knowing he would just repeat it back to her, but he shrugged and continued.

“Alright. Besides pop punk, I like experimental songs. Underground groups. Crystal Castles are my favorite.”

“Never heard of ‘em.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Right.”

“If you want more indie rock shit though, I suggest listening to I don’t know, the Arctic Monkeys? That seems more like her taste.”

“These bands have such weird names.”

“I think bands have always been like that.”

“Hey wait a sec, I thought you didn’t like that stuff? How do you know the name of one of those groups?”

“Ugh… I guess I might as well say it if you’re gonna get with her, but we were friends at some point. She introduced me to those bands, but even then I didn’t really like it. We had a stupid falling out I’d rather not get into.”

“Oh.. sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. Shit happens. You definitely seem like her type though, no wonder she got with you.”

“What’s her type?”

“Heh. As if I’d tell you.” He scoffed.

“C’mon man, please?”

“Nope.”

Michael frowned, slumping in his seat.

“Fine. Whatever. Not like I need to know.”

“You could at least pretend you don’t care.”

“I don’t.”

“You clearly do, bro.”

He sat arms crossed, turning a smidge away from Trevor. This was his opportunity to listen to his tunes again, but before he could Michael spoke up.

“Can I… can I listen to whatever you’re listening to?”

“Huh?”

“I wanna hear what you’re into.”

Trevor shot him a puzzled look.

“Uh.. okay.”

Wiping off an earbud, he handed one to Michael. He already had one in.

“Pick your poison cowboy.”

“Cowboy?”

“Just a nickname I give people.” He shrugged.

Michael settled on his experimental music, actually nodding along to the sound. They were closer than a minute ago, and it made Trevor uncomfortable for whatever reason. Maybe because he was never in such close proximity to strangers, but the other part of him didn’t care that much. Michael’s eyes were closed, smiling.

“You like it?”

“Yeah! Reminds me of synth stuff from the 80s, just more modern I guess.”

He smiled back at Michael, appreciating the fact there was someone else who liked the music he liked. The two listened to a couple different playlists he had, up until the moment Wade arrived at the park.

“Trevor! Hey!”

“Woah. Who’s your friend?”

“Hm?” He pulled out the single earbud, turning his head around. Wade had clown makeup on, making Trevor jump in his seat.

“Fucks sake. Hey Wade.”

“Ooh who’s this?”

He wasn’t sure if Wade freaked him out or not, seeing as the guy not only had matted locs, but many facial piercings as well. And the clown shit. He stood up to introduce them to one another.

“Wade, this is Michael. Michael, Wade.”

The way Michael looked at him was like a kid seeing a zoo animal for the first time. He looked bewildered, but not disgusted.

“Hi. What’s with the..?” He wavered a hand in Wade’s direction.

“Oh! It’s jus’ clown face. Not tryna scare ya or nothin’!”

“Uh huh… man. How have I never been around these parts? You guys are real different.”

“You got that right, Mike.”

“Seems like I’ve been missin’ out. I hangout with some dudes who would hate this place if I’m being honest.”

“I’ll have to meet ‘em sometime.” Trevor chuckled.

“They’re real cool guys. Didn’t expect our paths to cross, but anything’s possible in this fuckin’ city.”

“Oh yeah. Land of opportunities, for all types of wackjobs.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

A hand tapped Trevor on the shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me, Trevor, but are we still gonna talk about the Merryweather thingy-”

“Wade! Shut it-”

“What Merryweather thing?”

“Nothing, nothing. Not important.” He said, gritting his teeth, glare strong on Wade.

“Okay..”

“But you said we’d talk about it over icecream!”

“Later, Wade. Not right now.”

“Fiiine. Can we still get icecream though?”

“Sure. Promise. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay! Bye Trevor, bye stranger!”

Michael lifted a hand to haphazardly to wave goodbye.

“What was that about?”

“I told ya man, nothin’. Just going over some plans we’re making.”

“Is it about that special event being held there?”

“How you know about that?”

“Mandy told me.”

“Mandy… yeah. Figures as much.”

“She got an invite, and wants me to go as her plus one. I don’t know if I really wanna go though, I’m still pretty unfamiliar with all this.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“Seriously, what is your beef with those guys?”

“I told you, they start shit when they want. Taught ‘em a lesson and that was it. Nearly got me banned from this place, but it was kinda worth the looks on their faces.”

“You are.. quite peculiar y’know. Anyway, you mind showing more of that music? I was honestly gettin’ a kick outta it.”

“Uh, yeah.”

He sat back down next to Michael, handing him the same earbud as before. He clicked on one of his favorite Crystal Castles songs, Vanished. As they were listening, Michael furrowed his eyebrows.

“Hey wait a minute.. I think I’ve heard this before.”

“You have? I thought you didn’t know them.”

“No, I mean yeah I haven’t, but that’s not it. The lyrics. Vocals. I’ve heard them in a different song.”

“Oh.”

“Lemme think, lemme think, ah… I got it! Pass me your phone real quick.”

His fingers typed in the song title fast, pressing play right away. It was an indie rock song, much to Trevor’s dismay. But something stopped him from complaining, seeing how Michael’s face lit up.

“Yeah! This is it, Sex City by Van She. Y’know, I honestly think that’s neat.”

“What is?”

“The fact that a song you like, samples a song I like! Who would’ve guessed?” He said, eyes sparkling. Trevor didn’t notice how bright they were until now. The eye contact, along with the lack of space between them, made him feel stuffy again. He averted his eyes back to his phone, trying to loosen up a bit. As the song played, he savored in the sound, shocking himself a bit. The rock sound was there, but had an 80s sort of feel to it. The song finished before he knew it.

“So.. What’d ya think?”

“You know my thoughts on indie shit. Wasn’t for me, sorry.”

“Oh c’mon, you know you liked it.”

“Nope. Prefer Vanished.”

“Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that, but I honestly think they’re both really good. You think that too, I can feel it.”

“Whatever you say bro.”

He switched the song over to that Grimes song he listened to yesterday, the two of them sitting silently. It was a pleasant afternoon they shared. Suddenly Michael’s phone went off, and he yanked the earbud out.

“Ah shit. I gotta take this. Mandy.”

“Gotcha.”

Trevor grabbed the other earbud, putting it back in. He saw Michael wave his free hand around, looking close to hurling his phone right into the lake. Trevor assumed he must’ve been shouting as well, from the way other people were looking at him. Hanging up not much later, he returned to the bench, as Trevor put his earbuds away.

“Fuckin’ Christ.”

“So.. how’d it go?”

“She’s finally not mad at me anymore, but demanded I go take her shopping now. I swear, she’s gonna clear out my bank account or something.”

“How? You guys aren’t even dating.”

“I know, but I just can’t say no to her.”

“Uh huh.”

“Look, I’m sorry to leave so suddenly, but I really gotta go before she goes back to being pissed at me. See ya around?”

“I’ll be here man.”

Michael stood up, storming away. Seemed like he had a short temper, huh? He wondered to himself how long he was gonna stick around, seeing how Amanda’s dating history was… an extensive list. He thought back to last night, when he had seen that post of them, remembering the fact that no guy stayed for longer than a week. It almost made him bummed, seeing as he only had Ron and Wade for friends. Lester too, but that was on rare occasion. Shit. The plans. What time was it?

“Ah, fuck me.” He muttered. How did he let the day go by so quick?

He shot a text to Wade, telling him to grab Ron and meet at some icecream place. He did promise Wade after all.

Ron ended up meeting them there a little bit later, apologizing profusely before Trevor told him to just sit down and shut up. He did just that, almost apologizing once more.

“Now, let’s get down to business. Who do we know that would help us sneak into that club to cause sheer utter mayhem?”

Ron raised his hand excitedly.

“I could get Floyd maybe-”

“Definite fuckin’ no. He would have a heart attack the minute he set foot in there.”

This was getting nowhere. He tossed his head back to look up at the sky. As he did, he saw a couple walking out of the icecream place.

“Oh fucking hell.”

Was this guy following him or something? He snapped his head forward, trying to be a little more hidden.

“What? Trevor what is it?”

“Shh! Keep your fucking voice down Ron!”

He made all three of them lower their heads as the couple walked away, peeking over his shoulder to make sure they were gone. As he did, he could’ve sworn he saw Michael looking back at him. The both of them turned away as quick as possible from the split second of eye contact.

“Trevor?” Ron repeated.

“It was nothing. Just thought I saw someone.”

“Ain’t that the Michael fella I met today?”

“Nope. Don’t think it is.”

“Are ya sure-”

“Pretty fucking positive. Now, back on topic.”

The next hour or so still went nowhere. Wade had gone through two servings of icecream, and Ron started to get restless. Trevor was just bored.

“Ughhh there has to be something we can do!”

“I don’t know what to tell you Trevor. We’ll find someone, soon. There’s enough time isn’t there?”

“Yeah, but I’m not waitin’ til the last possible fuckin’ second to get a guy to help us out here.”

“But we still have time.”

“If you fuckin’ say so Ron.”

The three of them called it a night, as Trevor tossed around the idea of possibly getting Michael involved in his head. On one hand he wanted to out of spite just to make Amanda and the other hipsters mad, and on the other he didn’t want to screw up whatever new friendship he had started with Michael. Ron did say they had time to find someone soon. They weren’t exactly in a rush, but he still wanted to make sure their plan was concrete. They all went back to Wade’s, Trevor deciding to take a walk along the beach. He threw on the same playlist from earlier, watching the sunset. As he walked, he didn’t pay much mind to where he was going, bumping into someone.

“Ah fuck, watch where you’re going-”

“Shit, sorry man-”

As they spun around from the collision, he realized exactly who he had run into.

“Trevor?”

What the fuck?

“What the fuck? Are you following me or something?”

“Huh?”

“This is the third time I’ve seen you today. What are you even doing here?”

“Uh, it’s a public fuckin’ beach man.” He said, mocking the comment Trevor had made earlier.

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Hey, I’m just tellin’ you how it is. I didn’t purposely search for you, hell I didn’t even know you lived this way.”

“I do. So make like a tree and fuck off.” He said bitterly.

“Woah, chill the fuck out. What’s your deal? I thought we were cool man.”

“I don’t like being followed.”

“I just told you I wasn’t!”

“It doesn’t exactly seem like it. You just so happen to look for me this morning, and just happen to go to the same icecream place I went, and then I find you here? I mean Jesus-”

“I’m telling you, it’s all purely coincidence.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fuckin’ hell man..” He mumbled.

“Y’know, you’re as fuckin’ stubborn as Amanda is. I already told you-”

Trevor balled his fists, before jabbing a finger into Michael’s chest.

“Don’t fucking compare me to her.”

Michael threw his hands up defensively, not realizing he touched a nerve.

“Woah woah, easy dude. I didn’t think it was that bad between you guys.”

He exhaled loudly, unclenching his hands.

“It wasn’t. Isn’t. Just.. don’t compare me to her.”

Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling hard himself.

“Look, I think you’re cool and all but you can’t flip out on me like that. I mean we are just getting to know each other y’know. I can’t have you wanting to bite my head off like that if I just so happen to keep running into you. I really am just trying to navigate the area better, so forgive me if I came off as some sorta fuckin’ stalker. Amanda went home and I had nothing better to do so I chose to walk over this way.”

“Hmph. Fine. Whatever.”

“So we good?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now, since we’re already here why don’t we just hangout or something?”

Trevor folded his arms, trying to look like he didn’t want to spend another minute with him. It didn’t really work though, because he actually did want to talk to him more.

“If you insist.”

“Alrighty.”

The two of them started to head in the direction of the boardwalk, neither one speaking yet. After finding a bench to sit on as the sun sunk below the horizon, the silence was still there. This sort of thing was bizarre for both of them in different ways. Michael never really frequented these parts of LS, and Trevor never really hit it off with any kind of stranger. Ron and Wade were exceptions if anything, and he had known Lester for a while now. Yet there was something about this guy that didn’t make him feel like he was spending time with a stranger, even though he knew jack shit about him. He might as well try to make small talk.

“So I-”

“So uhh-”

They spoke over each other while trying to start up a conversation, making things feel a little more awkward.

“Shit sorry, you go first.”

“Nah nah you go.”

“Um. Okay. So.. tell me about yourself? We haven’t really talked about much besides music.”

“Yeah.. right. What do ya wanna know?”

“I just asked you to tell me about yourself, so it’s your job to decide what to say.”

Michael gave him a sardonic smile in response to that, partly because he wasn’t sure what to bring up about himself. It seemed like they were gonna be here a while if they wanted to say the most basic shit you say when getting to know someone.

“Well, I ain’t that interesting if you really need to know. I’m guessing you already know about my whole ‘affinity for the 80s’ thing, like the culture n shit that came from it. Real sick stuff.”

“If you say so.”

“Yeah. Anyway, if you really want to know plain shit about me though, I will tell ya that my favorite color’s blue.”

Trevor snickered at that.

“Pfft, seriously? We’re talking favorite colors now?”

“Hey man, you said you wanted to know more about me.”

“Uh yeah, but that’s so fuckin’ silly.”

“Maybe it is, but what about you? You got one?”

“Favorite color? You kiddin’?”

“I’m waiting..”

“Uh huh… I’ll give. Always liked the color red I guess. Like, in variety. Not picky about something as childish as that.”

“What’s childish about that?”

“Cuz only kids exchange that whole ‘oh what’s your favorite color?’ thing. It’s like if I were to ask you what your favorite dinosaur is.”

“Hmm.. I’d probably say a T-Rex.”

“Oh now you’re just pulling my dick. And no, I’m not telling you what mine is just because you did.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you though. That was all you.”

“Mm… shut it.”

“You got one though?”

“I’m not telling you!”

“Ah ah, I didn’t ask which one, I asked if you had one.”

“Well I don’t, so knock it off.”

“That’s fair. I won’t push.”

They grew silent for the second time that night, before Trevor mumbled something under his breath.

“It’s a pterodactyl..”

“What was that?”

He forced a breath through his nose, acting annoyed.

“It’s a fuckin’ pterodactyl. That’s mine. Okay?”

“Hah, okay. Any reason why?”

“You’re so nosy.”

“You’re the one who started this conversation about getting to know each other man.”

“Ugh, I know that.” He said, lightly shoving his shoulder.

“I think it’s cool that they could fly and shit. I like flying.”

“You like flying?”

“Loved it.”

“Wait, you tellin’ me you fly? Like, planes and shit?”

Trevor winced at the words, regretting what he just said.

“I did.. at some point. Air Force shit. They said I was one of the best they’d seen in a while but I.. left. Sort of.”

“Then why’d you leave?”

“I didn’t exactly leave on my own accord. More or less got kicked out.”

“How come-”

“I don’t like talking about it. I know we’re opening up or whatever the fuck but that.. that’s still too soon for me to want to bring up. Especially to someone I barely know.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He said, even though it really wasn’t. It’s not like Michael knew though, he really wasn’t trying to prod in a bad way.

It was almost pitch black by the time their conversation got to that point, only distant streetlight and the nearby pier lighting up their surroundings. The whole mood had shifted, and both of them decided to just break it off there.

“Hey uh, I’ll probably see you tomorrow man. If I’m with Amanda I think I’ll just send a wave or something your way.”

“Got it. See ya.”

“Bye.”

Trevor stayed put, watching Michael leave as he turned down a random one way street. This guy was tripping him out and he couldn’t pin point why. It was getting late though, and walked off himself back to Wade’s. He’ll save that vexed question for another night.

//ahhhhhh i rlly did not know what i wanted to do with this….,,., sorry if this wasn’t as good as the first two !! i alrdy know i repeated a bunch of stuff in there and i feel like it got kinda sloppy so again, soz (including typos or whtevr)

but uhhhh anyway yeah i cut it off here bc i wanted to continue some of this shit in the next chapter ig lol,, more stuff to come soon god willing

#gta v #grand theft auto v #grand theft auto 5 #trevor philips #michael townley #ron jakowski #wade hebert #midnight city au

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justtrashandshitlikethat · 3 years ago

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Here's my Spotify wrapped and also a PSA

I need to start with some weird backstory. I hate Dream and the dsmp and actively avoid and ignore that content. I don't mind seeing nice fanart and there's nothing wrong with liking it, I just have bad associations from my ex so I'd rather avoid it personally. I do watch Wilbur Soot's videos but don't regularly listen to his music. This information will be important later on.

Spotify wrapped 2021

Okay makes sense so far, The Beatles threw me off and I blame @al-arts for that. He's also why Elton John is my new favorite and heartrob.

Lemon Demon and Tally Hall are just always bangers, and remind me of Oingo Boingo on hallucinogenics. I also mostly have @turing-tested to thank for those 🤜 thanks bro

I was obsessed with Mother Mother, still am. I'm actually going to their Arizona concert in January, 2022. One of my favorite playlists is just all their songs on Spotify and I can sing along to every one.

My eyes BULGED a bit at 70,000 minutes but we'll get to that. Seriously though, Mother Mother.

Out of 1,054 they were my favorite BY FAR. And it seems I was theirs too! Top .005%?? I was thinking, that's gotta be like 10 people right..? No. No it's more like 35,000, still though!

I also listened to A LOT of them.. actually I listened to A LOT of music in general.

20,000 minutes of Mother Mother... That's 13.4 DAYS of Mother Mother.

70 thousand minutes in total...

42.... Days... I am mentally ill

Then it got weird....

Listen, no matter who you are or what side you are on I know what you are thinking when you see that image. And we are gonna talk about the giant ELEPHANT in the room... Last

#1 Indie Pop - yea, Elton John, Some Mother Mother, Lil Nas X, ect

#2 Modern Alternative Rock - Most Mother Mother and a ton of skilled smaller artists.

#4 Steampunk?? Huh?? Well I looked up Spotify's playlist for the genre and... Yea, This FUCKS. I still can't explain it, I understand it but.. yea, no, I can't explain it.

#5 Broadway - I know it's an acquired taste, but seriously I don't care who you are go listen to Hadestown. Right now seriously. I listened to a lot of that this year, also the Jekll and Hyde musical, fantastic piece of male Opera and an interesting take on the story (though not totally loyal to the original) and of course I listened to a lot of Phantom of The Opera, my grandma use to listen to and watch it with me, I sing Opera now because of her :)

And now the PSA we've all been waiting for..

#3 Dream SMP??? What?? What does that even mean? and how is that a genre? and most importantly?

WHY IS IT IN MY TOP 5? WHY IS A FANDOM I ACTIVELY AVOID, A "GENRE" IN (MY) SPOTIFY WRAPPED? WTF???

That was my first thought, then I calmed myself down, there had to be a rational explanation. I like Wilbur but not his music, only a few songs a WHILE ago... But... No, it still didn't make sense.

So I sent it to the group chat, low and behold two other people also had it in their top 5, with no idea what it meant, one of which also didn't like dream.

So I put on my detective cap and... Guys....

Okay so Spotify has two genre related features you should know about.

It allows any song to classify as multiple genres, which makes sense, most songs could be more than one genre.

It also allows new genres to be created, which also makes sense! Genres are created and songs are reclassified all the time.

The problem occured when somehow, someone, submitted and was approved for a genre called 'Dream SMP'

That genre includes these 100 songs.

Listen, I understand having fandom centric spaces and art but this could have been a playlist, it shouldn't be a genre.

Most of the songs on there are just general shippy songs or indie rock, nothing on the playlist is explicitly about dsmp.

The only things that would 'fit' under a genre like that is fan songs, and Wilbur Soot's music if he agreed to that.

Thanks for coming to my PSA, Hydrate, relax your shoulder and jaw, take your meds, are you forgetting about your laundry?

Also stream Business Man by Mother Mother on Spotify and please use the discover weekly function, it's so useful.

#Spotify wrapped #mother mother #PSA

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lilaviolet · 4 years ago

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I was tagged by @girl-looking-out-window thanks!

Tag 9 people to learn more about their interests!

MUSIC

fav genre? Alternative

fav artist? I'm not really into solo artists

fav band? Pearl Jam

fav song? Come on how can people pick?

State of Love and Trust, I Got Shit, every cover Pearl Jam have ever done.

most listened song recently? Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode

song currently stuck in your head?

none

fav lyrics?

On empty shells seem so easy to crack Got all these questions Don't know who I could even ask So I'll just lie down and wait for the dream Where I'm not ugly and you're lookin' at me

I will come to you in the daytime I will raise you from your sleep I will kiss you in four places As I go runnin' down your street I will squeeze the life right out of you I will make you laugh, and make you cry And we may never forget it As I make you call my name as you shout it to the blue, summer sky And we may never meet again So shed your skin lets get started And you will throw your arms around me And you will throw your arms around me

BOOKS

fav book genre? Romance don't laugh

fav writer? Amanda Quick

fav book? Jane Eyre

fav book series? Roswell High lol

comfort book? I don't think I have one

perfect book to read on a rainy day? I dunno

fav characters? Millie Michalchuk from Puddin' Bo from Dumplin' Kitty, Lara Jean and Peter from All The Boys I've Loved Before, various protaginists from Amanda Quick novels but I'm not trying to remember their names lol

5 quotes from your fav book that you know by heart?

Only gonna do my absolute fave

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”

TV AND MOVIES

fav tv/movie genre? Romantic comedy

fav movie? Clueless

comfort movie? 10 Things I Hate About You

movie you watch every year? I dunno

fav tv show? Schitt's Creek

comfort tv show? Devil Beside You (a Taiwanese drama that is so cracktastic which is my jam)

most rewatched tv show? Community

ultimate otp? Honestly Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens as their characters but like those two are soulmates in another life I think they'd be together in real life. Judge me all you want I simply do not care if you'd read the masterpieces written about them you'd know.

5 fav characters? Mindy Lahiri, Finn Nelson, Alexis Rose, Michael Guerin and Leslie Knope (what do they have in common, what's the thread? It could tell me something about myself lol?)

tagging @madoddthings @redprairielily @flirtmcgirt @darkarfs @cowboy-granta @aaronamos @expressivite @cant-getno-sleep and @chelsealorine

feel free to ignore!

if you see this and want to do it please do and tag me!

#tagged

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nimiumcaelo · 4 years ago

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sorry to bother you but i’m just getting into chillywilly/willton and was wondering if you had any fic/author recs?

Friend I have been waiting for someone to ask this!! Thank you for the being the first brave soul to broach the subject!

1. “Scar Tissue” by AuntieClimactic

Summary: ‘“Dr. Chilton, could you put your hand on Mr. Graham’s thigh?” Freddie Lounds shouts from 300 yards away. “Try not to look completely disgusted by me, Mr. Graham,” Chilton mutters. “We are, after all, tragically in love.” Chilton cuts Will a sideways look, tilting his head mockingly. Or: Dr. Frederick Chilton and Will Graham agree to be cannibal bait.’

Rated: Explicit

Wordcount: 6,773

This is probably my favorite chillywilly fic. It’s so natural and the way it flows from season to season is just *chefs kiss* I particularly love the way the author handles the trauma and the characters’ reactions to it.

2. “In Forty-Nine Hours” by xevinx

Summary: Will Graham and Frederick Chilton haven't spoken to each other since the latter was wrongfully arrested at the former's house. But unforeseen circumstances lead to them being forced to spend two days in the same car on a cross-country drive to a conference.It was never going to go smoothly.

Rated: Teen and Up

Wordcount: 19,748

This one is soooo good!! It’s your usual cute road-trip story with the obligatory “there’s only one bed” trope, but it’s handled SO WELL. This fic is also just so natural and in-character. Bonus points for vegan Frederick and super soft Will. I won’t give away any spoilers but the kisses in this one are SO GOOD AND SO SOFT AAAA

3. “Leftovers” by gregerbil

Summary: Frederick wakes up in the hospital and finds Will in the same building. Standing in the debris that Hannibal left in his wake, the two become tentative allies as they try to rebuild their lives.(This fanfiction was begun before S3 had aired and starts almost right after the last S2 episode, so now that S3 exists, it is wildly AU.)

Rated: Explicit (but I don’t think it actually shows up in the story)

Wordcount: 40,661 (UNFINISHED)

Okay so this one is really long and unfinished (last updated in June of 2020 so not without hope) BUT it is soooo freakingggg goooood. It’s got slight Chilton whump but like it’s handled well.

4. “Collected fragments” by dazebras

Summary: I wanted to post some of my unfinished (and largely abandoned) drafts. I still enjoy the writing and what I made it through so far, but I've left the fandoms for the most part. Maybe interest here will inspire me to continue?Chapter 1: (Hannibal) Will buys Chilton at a charity bachelor auction, and they both hate every minute of it Chapter 2: (Avengers) Pepper/Natasha Regency!AU

Rated: Not rated

Wordcount: 4,083 (but only about half is chillywilly)

So this one is also unfinished but it’s full of so much potential. I might actually write something inspired by this sometime because it’s just THAT GOOD of an idea. It has a bachelor auction, Alana trying to get Will out of the house, bowling, and so much more.

5. “Someone to Sit in Your Chair” by eaglesflying

Summary: Frederick Chilton turned out to be a better psychiatrist than any of them assumed. (And he got a cat.)

Rated: Mature

Wordcount: 5,328

There’s a KITTEN!!!! Other than that, it’s a little dark and depresso, but it is still very good.

6. “Like Voices On A String” by captaineifersucht

Summary: Frederick Chilton is a radio DJ stuck with the least popular slot (midnight to 4 A.M. every Monday through Saturday!) on Baltimore’s local alternative/indie station. Will Graham is an FBI profiler with awful insomnia, who finds comfort in driving late at night to the soothing playlist that comes from 97.9 FM. He occasionally emails and texts the DJ on for those few hours, signing all contact as his latest hallucination--The Ravenstag.

Months into this relationship, on another sleepless night, Will decides to seek out more. He calls into the radio channel, all nervous energy as Frederick picks up. Will offers to bring him coffee, maybe a snack if he’s hungry. Frederick agrees, and Will thinks that he sounds more insecure than usual.

One cup of coffee turns into two, then the trip becomes a weekly occurrence, and doubles again. Will finds himself in the lobby of the radio tower as Frederick has a playlist running. Their chemistry is tangible, and Frederick wastes no time in convincing Will that they should be more than friends. Will lets himself dive headfirst into what seems to be the healthiest relationship he’s ever been in, only to find himself quickly backpedaling when the case he’s working on turns deadly.

Rated: Explicit

Wordcount: 32,447

I have not yet read this fic but it’s been sitting in my Mark for Later for about a week or two now. It’s an AU where Chilton’s a DJ and idk something about that just sounds so interesting??? and soft??? and safe for poor Chilton???

...

Also not to be a shameless self-promoter but I’m currently working on a chillywilly fic right now! I haven’t yet totally decided in what direction it’ll go, but it starts out with Chilton and Will at Alana and Margot’s wedding, and circumstances happen such that the boyz end up in the bathroom minus one pair of pants.

Thanks so much for the ask, pal!

#m responds #chillywilly #willton #hannibal

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grimelords · 5 years ago

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So since the last time I posted one of these the entire world has changed dramatically and hopefully 4 hours of music will tide you over in quarantine for a bit longer. Strangely I’ve been busier than ever, and what started as a personal challenge to listen to a new album every day in February turned into me listening to 116 new albums in March and 124 in April. I’ve got a stacked google doc full of star ratings and dates now and it’s really been a lot of fun, I highly recommend trying it yourself. This is my March playlist, because I accidentally took a month off, and I’m thinking of either switching these playlists to weekly to make them a little more digestible or just dropping them whenever. Who knows. Let me know what you think and drop album recommendations in the comments please.

Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

If you’d like to receive these playlists in a more digestible email format, please subscribe to my tinyletter here: http://tinyletter.com/grimelords

On A Slow Boat To China - Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee: Ok first off it’s amazing this song isn’t more racist. I don't remember now how or why I came across this. I think I was just thinking about crooners and how as a genre it's now existed in common popularity as a nostalgic idyll of a mytholigised past far longer than it was ever actually popular which is interesting. The origin of this song, according to wikipedia, is also one of the most 40s ideas I've ever read: "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a person who lost steadily and handsomely. The idea being that a "slow boat to China" was the longest trip one could imagine. Loesser moved the phrase to a more romantic setting, yet it eventually entered general parlance to mean anything that takes an extremely long time".

Fight Night - Migos: I saw that Offset had some new show on Quibi the extremely fake sounding streaming service and I thought "how did Migos get so world conqueringly large that they get to make 10 minute shows nobody will watch for a $2 billion venture capital funded app that will never make any money?" They seem to have this massive reputation without having much to back it up. The last thing I remember everyone talking about was how Culure II was two hours long in order to game streaming numbers and was simply not good. They seemed to have sort of settled into making background music for scrolling instagram. But then I remembered Fight Night and I thought: "oh wait, that's right, Migos are fucking great". Where their other big hits like Bad And Boujee and Walk It Talk It have this sort of laid back vibe where they've comfortably nailed the formula and relax onto it, Fight Night commands your attention. StackboyTwan killed the beat - it has this propulsive momentum where it feels like it's constantly ramping up, moving up from the sidesick and bassline in the verse, up to the claps on the beat, and the big gang chants on the offbeat once the full instrumentation kicks in - then it just goes around and around and around with the constant bassline the whole tim. It's a perfect all-rise production because it never actually explodes, it's all building tension held down by an unchanging bassline.

Do It Puritan! - El Hombre Trajeado & Sue Tompkins: I am extremely delighted to announce that Sue Tompkins of one of my all time favourite single album bands Life Without Buildings has broken a nearly 20 year musical hiatus to appear on this song by El Hombre Trajeado. It is so nice to hear how her voice has changed and her approach has stayed the same. Her style is so unique and so good and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it.

5 8 6 - New Order: Before 'the incident' I had tickets to see New Order at the end of March and so I embarked on a big listen through of their discography, which has now unfortunately made it feel even worse that live music is cancelled indefinitely.

Oom Sha La La - Haley Heynderickx: First of all I love songs where they talking about how they're writing a song halfway through. And I love songs that seem like a pretty normal singer songwriter indie thing where someone just starts screaming near the end. I love this song. A great staring at the wall and absolutely losing your mind because you haven't done anything with your whole life anthem.

Elektrobank - The Chemical Brothers: Can you believe I've never listening to a full Chemical Brothers album before this month? Can you believe big beat ever went our of style? It feels insane that we ever swapped this sort of energy for the beige algorithm of EDM. I think there's a real triumph in this album, and in this track especially of replicating the live feeling in studio. Giving it this much space to grow and change and get very hairy near the end is amazing, it feels like it was just recorded live.

My Mind's A Ship (That's Going Down) - Katie Pruitt: It feels very rare to me that this sort of extremely smooth Nashville prduction actually makes a song better. It has a habit of strangling the life out of a song and making it blend into a boring paste of soundalikes, but with Katie Pruitt it works amazingly. Her songwriting is so distinct and clear and her voice, especially near the end where it punches hole in the sky, is so strong and so her own that it doesn't need anything else.

Water - Ohmme: "What if Tegan And Sara were a noise band instead?" is a question I didn't know I needed an answer to. I love any band that has the guts to write songs like this that sound like pop from an alternate history, so off kilter and odd and noisy but with this undeniable pop heart that the duo vocals make sound like schoolyard clapping chants remixed by Lightning Bolt.

Lions, Tigers and Bears - SLIFT: A friend put me on to Slift and described them as French King Gizz and really, I'm inclined to agree. This is the traditional long last song at the end of their new album, and as usual I am advocating that every song should be the long last song at the end of the album. I love this style of jam where everyone else goes to space but the rhythm section just digs in and works hard as fuck for ten minutes. Then the whole last 3 minutes of the song are just fat drone riffs. This song's got everything.

The Pines - 070 Shake: This 070 Shake album is unbeleivably good and it warms my heart to see the dark energy of The Pines live on through another century in yet another permutation. I have more to say about it later in the Jackson C Frank version coming up but it feels like this 070 Shake album kind of came and went but I implore you to listen, it’s an aoty contender for sure.

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Funkadelic: If you can stop thinking about the intro, which I certainly can’t (Hey lady won’t you be my dog and I’ll be your tree and you can pee on me.) there is so much goodness in this song. For a while now I’ve been thinking about how, for lack of a better word, ‘positive’ music is consistently underrated in the critical canon. Dance music, disco and funk especially are derided as empty sugar music, while every cookie cutter metal band absolutely demands to be taken seriously. In dance music this manifests as genres like tech house sucking all the fun and individuality out of music until it’s just an endless parade of producers working to a schematic of the barest essentials. It feels like you can’t have fun and be taken seriously at the same time, which feels like an obvious contradiction but shouldn’t be!

Spoils - Dry Cleaning: Dry Cleaning are my Lock Of The Month Band To Watch In The Future Because They’re Gonna Go Off. They have such a great sound and I’m desperate for an album because I just need more. This song absolutely knocked me down when I first heard it. I love any band where it sounds like the singer has just wandered in while the rest of them were rehearsing. There’s a very good talking-songs movement happening in the UK right now between these guys, Do Nothing and Fontaines D.C and i’m excited to see where it progresses. I might put together a playlist a little later to show you what I mean.

As - Stevie Wonder: I finally listened to Songs In The Key Of Life this month, which is an experience I would recommend to everyone. This shit goes for 21 songs over 105 minutes and absolute bangs the whole way. The original release of this album was a double LP plus a 7", which is yet another reason I am grateful for streaming that I don't have to buy a damn box set to hear this thing.

Sleep Now In The Fire - Rage Against The Machine: I am working on a very niche playlist called Songs Where The Guitar Amp Accidentally Picks Up A Nearby Radio Station For A Couple Of Seconds and it's only 3 songs so far. A Man A Plan A Canal Panama by The Fall Of Troy, Melody 4 by Tera Melos and Sleep Now In The Fire by Rage Against The Machine. In every single one of those songs it feels like a critical component even though it's just an accident that's been left in because it sounds good. Here it's the perfect ending as the rage dies down and the commercial world fades back in. Anyway, my other question about this song is about the great Michael Moore directed video where they famously shut down Wall Street for an afternoon. There's a shot of a guy for a second holding a sign that says Donald Trump For President in 1999. Which is odd but not out of the question, he's been famous for a long time and there's always been freaks. My question is why the fuck did he have that sign that day? Was he amongst the Rage Against The Machine Fans that showed up? A counter protestor? Was he, perhaps most chillingly of all, just walking idly around Wall Street with his Donald Trump For President sign like usual and stumbled upon this whole hoo-haa accidentally?

Applause (Purity Ring Remix) - Lady Gaga: Did you fucking know that Purity Ring did a remix of Applause? If there’s something I’d love to know more about and it’s Purity Ring’s forays into pop production. After their first album they did some production for rappers like Danny Brown in the great track 25 Bucks, which is a good fit really - their sound is witch house with the tempo pushed back up, witch house of course just being chopped and screwed reinvented by tumblr users. So it’s a natural fit to take that new perspective back into the world of hip hop. They also did this fantastic remix of Applause after their first album. Then, after their second album they produced 3 songs for Katy Perry’s Witness album, and one Katy Perry song for a Final Fantasy mobile game soundtrack (?) and feel like the long silence and delay between their second and third albums is because of more behind the scenes pop production work - but if that’s true, where is it? Is it, as I suspect, part of my own personal Pepe Silvia, Katy Perry’s scrapped 2019 album that has vanished into thin air? Or is it part of Chromatica? I think Purity Ring have solidified an interesting place in pop, paving the way for Billie Eilish and Kim Petras’ dark anti-pop and so i’m excited to see where they go after this new album now that they’re the architects of the new wave.

React/Revolt - Drahla: The smartest thing you can do is add a saxophone to your band. The whole first half of this song could go for 20 minutes of growling screaming saxophone post-punk and I wouldn't mind. Then when the second half of the song kicks in it's fantastic in the way this whole Drahla album is: it's tight and sprawling post-punk at the same time with a complicated structure that seems to just pile onto itself instead of ever circling back.

And I Was Like - Porridge Radio: I'm seemingly having a real thing this month for songs that open with a bizzare acapella chant. Between this and the Funkadelic one it's a genre I'm very interested in hearing more of. Isaac Newton was a virgin and it's important to recognise that. The thing I love about this song is how it's in 3 distinc sections: Isaac Newton was a virgin, she's a birthday girl in a birthday world, and mum no please it's grunge, and they all feel like the concentrated energy of a 14 year old's thoughts. She sounds like she's almost crying when she sings 'she's a birthday girl in a birthday world'. The concentrated confusing teenaged energy of this song is just overwhelming.

Dirty Mattresses - Mama's Broke: So much of contemporary 'traditional folk' either exists as pure nostalgia music or as music that's trying too hard to be 'authentic' and evoke a mythology of a bygone time, but Mama's Broke manage to make it feel new and modern but honest and authentic at the same time. The super close harmonies and modern approach remind me of House And Land who I also love, but the songwriting is in another class entirely.

Building A House - CHOPCHOP: I don't know if you've ever seen Bad Boy Bubby but CHOPCHOP feels a little like the band that he ends up joining at the end. A musical ensemble built to enable the will of a very strange man. I think the band is from the UK and I'm not sure where the singer is from, but he has this incredible deeply accented voice that brings such a gravity to everything he sings in the way that anyone speaking english as a second language accidentally brings new weight to common turns of phrase.

Universal Soldier - Jay Electronica: It feels fitting, looking back, that Jay Electronica finally released his album right before the world ended. It was literally now or never. Some how Jay-Z is the breakout star of this album for me. He's got some of his best verses in years on here and he's a great opposition to Electronica's flow when they trade verses. I would also, as an aside, like to know the origin of the kids cheering sample throughout this, because it's the same one from AM//Radio by Earl Sweatshirt and Wish You Were Gay by Billie Eilish. So what's that about.

Sticky Hulks - Thee Oh Sees: I've been very slowly getting into Oh Sees and I love them a lot so far. Their unweildy, huge discography spread across a lot of variations of the same name makes digging into them very rewarding as well. There's a great line on their wiki detailing all the times they've changed their name that goes: Orinoka Crash Suite (1997–2003), OCS (2003–2005, 2017), Orange County Sound (2005), The Ohsees (2006), The Oh Sees (2006–2008), Thee Oh Sees (2008–2017), Oh Sees (2017–2019) Osees (2019) to give you some idea of what we're working with here. Basically it's just everything you could want from a pychedelic band like this: a history and discography as shaggy as the songs themselves.

Knife On The Platter - BODEGA: In reading about Bodega I learned that they don't have a drummer in the traditional sense. They have someone credited as a 'stand up percussionist', and in listening back I realised that's they key to the groove in their music. He's not playing a kit he's just slamming at a tom and a snare on a rack, while one of the singers plays hi-hat here and there. So all the drumming has this barebones caveman feel to it and I absolutely love it. The band feels a lot like The Fashion, and that whole mid-2000s dance-punk movement that I've been desparate to come back so naturally I love it a lot.

Against Gravity - Horse Lords: Horse Lords are one of the most incredible bands I've heard in a long time. Somewhere between a more analogue Battles and Laddio Bolocko, they make a kind of churning math-jazz that sounds like huge intersecting squares of rhythm slowly overlapping. It feels like there's an infinite depth in these songs, you can listen and focus on a single instrument and see it shifting in and out of place with everyone else, before you lose it again and it retreats back into the swirling mass.

Plain To See Plainsman - Colter Wall: I've been listening to this Colter Wall album a lot, and it's really beginning to rank among my all time favourites. I grew up around the flattest place in the southern hemisphere, so I love the plains and it's very nice to have a cowboy song I can relate to like that.

The Nail - Sarah Shook & The Disarmers: Sarah Shook has so much character in her voice I completely love it. She is also a fantastic songwriter that manages to make outlaw country punk that sounds authentic and doesn't have the rockabilly posturing that a lot of the genre suffers from.

Inner Reaches 慾望的暗角二 - Gong Gong Gong 工工工: The best thing about Gong Gong Gong is you can listen to this whole song before you realise they don't have a drummer. They're a guitar and bass duo that play and sing with such a layered rhythmic intensity between the two of them that they really don't need one. A drummer would just clutter the space already taken up by their ferocious rhythm.

Country Pie - Bob Dylan: I'm a big fan of Bob Dylan's dumb songs. He has a lot where if it's the first song you ever heard from him you would be mad at whoever told you he was the greatest songwriter to ever live for trying to trick you like this. What I especially love about this song is how abruptly it ends, like dad just came home and everyone panicked cause they're know they're not supposed to be staying up that late.

You Did It Yourself - Arthur Russell: It seems hard to believe that I've only just found out about Arthur Russel. He seems to be a mainstay of Music Guy lists and somehow I've only heard of him this month. I've been obsessing over the Iowa Dream album, which is a compilation of a lot of different (mostly extremely high quality) demos from the late 70s to mid 80s and what really shines through other than the singular strength of his songwriting is how readily and easily he bends from country style folk to romantic piano ballads, to groovy post-punk like this. What I love so much about this song is it's a great lesson in songwriting: sometimes a song can just be a vague review of a middling movie and still have emotional resonance. Incredible. There's a great NPR article about Arthur Russel and the process of assembling half-takes and demos into complete recordings that you should read if you're interested. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/20/779721417/which-arthur-russell-are-we-getting-on-iowa-dream

The Dogs Outside Are Barking - Arthur Russell: I love this song because it's such a perfect distillation of a teenaged moment: trying to find a moment alone with someone when you have no freedom at all to create one. The song cycles through potential situations but leaves the problem unresolved, existing in the moment of nervous romantic tension preceding an unasked question and it's just beautiful.

Men For Miles - Ought: I love the vocal melody in the verse here so much. Spiking up unnaturally at the end of the lines like a nervous and strange version of The Strokes. Even the way he cramps his words in in the chorus is so good, switching registers randomly like he's impersonating someone else.

Mister Soweto - Lizzy Mercier Descloux: https://pitchfork.com/features/from-the-pitchfork-review/9828-lizzy-mercier-descloux-behind-the-muse/ Pitchfork has a great article about Lizzy Mercier Descloux detailing how she is continually undervalued and underappreciated. I found her though my Discover Weekly and became immediately obsessed with this album - a perfect mix of off-kilter 80s bass and brass that is so colourful and seems to move in a million directions at once like the songs can't even catch up with themselves sometimes. I'm excited to dig into her discography more and try to understand her more because she has a truly unique approach that I can't get enough of.

Sweden - Marilyn Crispell: I've been looking for a while for other pianists of Cecil Taylor's calibre, rare type that it is and I am so glad to have finally found out about Marilyn Crispell. She plays free jazz like Taylor, but in much less percussive and disonnant style. There's a New York Times quote that seems to follow her that says "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." and it's really very apt. She will move with seemingly no warning at all from mediative, colourful stokes to a mad descent unto uncertainty and beyond, then back again without a moments hesitation. Her music moves like a dream, linking a stream of unlinked images with an ease that only seems incongruous on reflection.

Twins - Gem Club: I have loved this song for a very long time and I come back to it over and over and appreciate it anew. What I appreciate about on listening to it this time is the strangeness of it's structure, following up the verse with an instrumental break, and then a long instrumental intro to the chorus gives it so much space to spread out and breathe, giving the beautiful gravity of the song even more weight. Then after the chorus it moves straight to a bridge and then the intro and first verse again. It's a fantastic song that makes it's small parts so large, where another songwriter or another producer would pare them down.

Grand Central - Paul Cauthen: Something I've learned in listening to a lot of cowboy music is that the number one thing that cowboys hate and fear is getting hanged. They hate it worse than cats hate getting sprayed with water. I found out about Paul Cauthen combing through Colter Wall's similar artists looking for more of this brand of new old fashioned country and I really found it here. Paul Cauthen comes from four generations of preachers and left the church to pursue country music instead, which feels like an extremely old fashioned position to be in here in 2020 but I guess lots of people in Texas still live like that, and thank god they do or we wouldn't have Paul Cauthen's big mournful Elvis voice to sing us songs about the railway.

Serafina - BAMBARA: I love this sort of spoken word leather jacket rock and roll. It's so extremely Cool in an old fashioned way. Like a more rock and roll version of Enablers.

So 4 Real - The Hecks: I love love love this song that sounds like a sped up Prince demo. The strange thinness of the mix and the way the vocals are buried just makes it sound so strange and great, like it was put together on some ancient 4 track recorder that can't handle the pure energy of the song.

In The Pines (Version 2) - Jackson C. Frank: There's a very good 3 hour compilation of Jackson C. Frank recordings that came out a few years called Remastered And Unreleased that I listened through the other day. It's just magnificent. This version of In The Pines is one of my favourite I've ever heard, the mournful vocals coupled with his churning rhythm guitar really brings out the darkness of it in a way I've never heard.

(Tumble) In The Wind (Version 1) - Jackson C. Frank: Another favourite from this compilation that is slightly hard to listen to. I don't know if there's a date on it but I'd guess this was recorded near the end of his life. It is so beautiful, but you can hear in his voice and breathing that he's unwell. In Horseshoe Crabs by Hopalong she sings a story from his perspective this song really seems to fit in the second half of that. "Woke from the dream and I was old / Staring at the ass crack of dawn / Walked these streets up and down / Looking for Paul Simon / All I found was myself, lost in time / I tried singing my songs / But I lost my mind"

Sludge - Squid: I'm thinking of putting together a playlist of all the great Black Midi-adjacent bands I've found out about recently and Squid is at the top of the list. This new breed of art-punk is so fantastic and goes in a million different directions. I'm just so excited it exists.

Straight Shot - Quelle Chris: I love this song and Guns is a phenomenal album but there’s one thing bothering me. The ‘who are you, what are you’ part at the end sounds so incredibly familiar to me and I can’t figure out why. As far as I can tell it’s not a sample, but googling reveals that the english voice on it is fucking James Acaster the standup comedian. So what’s going on? Quelle Chris himself is less than helpful: “Straight Shot is one of those ideas that reached out to me, we got along and I simply showed it around town. The chorus, poem at the end and basic piano progression literally came to me in two separate dreams”. Who knows. Great song though.

Levitation - Dua Lipa: What I really like about this song is that she says sugarboo. This whole album bangs and Dua is really reaping the benefits of being the only pop star with the guts to release an album while everyone’s in lockdown I also have a half-baked theory about the way this song is almost interpolating Blame It On The Boogie in the ‘moonlight, starlight’ part as a sort of aggressive takeover of Michael Jackson’s cancelled legacy. Which is smart really. The same way Taylor Swift is re-recording her albums, let’s just get The Weeknd in the studio for a couple of days and give the world back it’s bangers.

Another Crashed Car - Nine Inch Nails: I am so glad Trent Reznor put out another two volumes of Ghosts. Ghosts I-IV from 2008 seems to have been the bridge from his Nine Inch Nails work to his film score work, and now that he’s had such success with that it’s nice to hear him writing in this style without telling anyone else’s story again. It’s also interesting for him to go back to this project now that Ghosts I-IV has paid dividends in the form of the sample at the centre of Old Town Road but that’s neither here nor there. It’s hard to pick and individual track from these, because they work so effectively as long form albums and not individual tracks, but I chose this one because I put the album on as background ambient while I was doing some boring data entry at work and this track is the point at which I realised I was going out of my mind with stress from doing the simplest tasks because of Trent’s Damned Chords.

Lilacs - Waxahatchee: This is a perfect song. It makes me want to like, draw charts about it and go through it bar by bar to figure out how she did it. It’s perfectly put together. It feels like she uses every trick in the book and it just comes together flawlessly in 3 minutes. Amazing.

Cool Water - Hank Williams: I decided to properly listen to Hank Williams because his shadow stretches over so much of country music, and while a lot of his music really alienated or bored me, and a lot of his songs feel like they would read as novelty songs today (like Hey Good Looking), this is the song that made me understand why he’s so revered.

In My Bones (feat. Kimbra and Tank And The Bangas) - Jacob Collier: Jacob Collier generally irks me. He makes brain music for redditors that lose their mind when someone shows them chord inversions or odd time signatures. Youtubers whose whole personality is ‘y’all heard Giant Steps?’ But he killed it on this song. It’s great despite him. There’s still a lot of corniness to work through, mostly in the big yuck funky lyrics, but structurally it’s a kaleidoscope and a big chunk of its success I’m putting down to Kimbra and Tank who understand that performance is a bigger part of a song than composition in a way Collier maybe doesn’t yet. He can overload the bassline and stop-start the rhythms as much as he likes but without actual personalities driving it it’ll just sound like a Peter Gabriel midi played at 200%.

Earthquake - Graham Central Station: I learned something wonderful in researching this band. The leader, Larry Graham, who was in Sly And The Family Stone is credited with inventing slap bass. He himself refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin' ".

Quand Les Larmes D’un Ange Font Danser La Neige - Melody’s Echo Chamber: Once again furious that I’ve known of Melody’s Echo Chamber for years but never listened to them until now. I have been missing out. This is a perfect sprawling psychedelic jam punctuated with a bizzare cut-up recording about shitting yourself when you die and being declared brain dead in the vatican. It’s got everything. I had to look up who the drummer was on this song because he’s just nailing it, and it turns out it’s Johan Holmegaard from Dungen which is really a perfect fit.

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan: I was thinking the other day about how Bob Dylan is doing in quarantine. The man who hasn’t stopped moving his whole life and who’s been on a never ending tour since the 70s is now, I assume, just pacing a hole in a hotel carpet somewhere and jabbering to himself. The strangest part of Bob dropping this 17 minute song about JFK out of nowhere is that he hasn’t put out any original music since 2012. So a gigantic song like this is an even bigger surprise. I, already a huge fan of gigantic songs and Bob Dylan, unsurprisingly love it. I love the slow stirring of the instrumentation, like he hired Dirty Three as a backing band and I love that nearly the entire second half is just listing good songs that he knows. It’s a remarkable song and unlike anything i’ve heard before from Dylan or anyone else. It’s interesting to hear Bob Dylan step into being the great chronicler of the 60s like he’s been told he already was his entire life almost 50 years later, finally accepting the fate foisted on him. The other thing I love about this song is the line when he for some reason praises Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooting “Greatest magic trick ever under the sun / Perfectly executed, skillfully done”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k1JjT8fXcUFO6VpM3kaez?si=gWSv88vdShKSnHhLJ_80pQ

#playlists

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mytastessuck · 4 years ago

Text

Gorillaz: Humanz

SHere it is, the comeback tour! I was so excited for this album, I sucked all the singles that came out before I could download the album. This album basically reminded me of the reasons I love Gorillaz. All of them. One particular reason a little too well...

Okay, let's get the elephant out of the room. This album is a bit controversial among the community for playing a little too hard to one of Gorillaz' strengths: showcasing cool artists. There are more than a few tracks where Damon doesn't even show up. Hell, my favorite track doesn't even have it on him. Me, I honestly don't care about that as long as I get to hear good music but for the rest of you die hard Gorillaz fans? Just think of this as a compilation album like NOW That's What I Call Alternative/Indie Hip-Hop/R&B/Electronica/Pop.

See? Rolls off the tongue. Now let's get started.

1. Intro: I Switched My Robot Off

Nice. Real ominous. Gorillaz really know how to build up a presentation. Feels like you're walking through the doors of the doors to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Anybody remember Legends of the Hidden Temple? Were there doors on that stage? Anyway, awesome.

10/10

2. Ascension

Holy hell, Vince really knocks it out of the park on this one. Different beat, nice flow, social commentary...He was not fucking around on this track. Damon's barely on the track but Vince makes up for it with his existential rhymes and chorus back-up. Man, Gorillaz has gotta take advantage of gospel more often.

9/10

3. Strobelite

That didn't take long, did it? Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album. Peven has an incredible voice, the music psychically compels you to dance and...that's it. Sometimes, well usually with me, you just need to go with Simple Yet Awesome. Have a good voice and a good beat. This song has both and I'm pretty sure that one day, a scientist will hear this song and will be inspired by it to cure diabetes.

100/10

4. Saturn Barz

Ah, the lead single from the album. Remember the 360 house, everyone? Yeah, you remember. Glad to have Gorillaz welcome back Reggae into their line-up with Popcaan manning the helms. He and Damon tag-team the eardrums with the power of dread as the instrumentation makes you feel like you're in a haunted house. Welcome back, guys.

25/10

5. Momentz

WELCOME BACK, GUYS! De La Soul returns to say some real shit about time and how you should, respect and stuff. Seriously, awesome track. Kicks so much ass and you can even dance to it as you wonder if this MOMENT will be one of the last times when you feel really happy. Nice...

9/10

6. Interlude: The Non-Conformist Oath

Hey, Steve Martin! I like to imagine a bunch of assholes listening to this and...just not getting it. Not us though. We get it. We're smart. Smarter than those guys...

10/10

7. Submission

This song had to grow on me but years after I got the album and after I learned to appreciate Danny Brown a little more like all humans should, this song became one of my favorites off the album. Don't worry Kelela, he doesn't carry the whole song. Her voice is so beautiful that it can calm a charging rhino or a coked-up Connor McGregor. These make the song a lot classier than it had any right being.

90/10

8. Charger

She's beauty, she's Grace...she's also Jones. Man, I haven't heard from this woman since Corporate Cannibal and she has clearly been keeping up practice. God, how can a woman's laughter both scare and arouse me? Damon's no slouch on this track either, singing about the monster that keeps us all tethered: the charger. I kid, I kid. Hey, did Damon really get a boner on stage when he sung this or are you guys messing with me? Message me if you know.

9/10

9. Interlude: Elevator Going Up

On a recent trip, I tried to go up the elevator but it was card-activated so a desk lady had to help me. That's it.

8/10

10. Andromeda

Damon has to do the heavy lifting here and his muscles have not completely wasted away from lack of use. He tells us to take in our heart and you know what? I did. I took this song directly in my heart...and my playlist.

50/10

11. Busted And Blue

Yeah, this song is a bummer. A good bummer. It's Broken's younger brother who joined the army to make his parents proud after he couldn't get into university like his older brother who managed to form a separate family with his squad and began to think that maybe he was good enough after all before his squad gets bombed and, as he lies legless dying painfully on the ground, a blue butterfly land directly on his outstretched busted hand...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

10/10

12. Interlude: Talk Radio

You ever wonder how we get voices in machines? I know you think it's a complicated process but I know a dude who picked up the radio in his electric fan once. Think about it.

8/10

13. Carnival

Again, this song had to grow on me but one day, while I was thinking about Gamzee for a godforsaken reason, I thought "Geez, he talks about the Dark Carnival and the Dark Carnival isn't even some of ICP's best days. What's a good song about a carnival?" Anyway, Anthony can spin a person's mind and mind around just by singing. He's wild.

80/10

14. Let Me Out

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Mavis was Vince's mother? She's not but that would be funny as well as cool. Her and Pusha T bang on the walls of this track as they rant about the politics at the time of this song. Yeah, they're talking about Trump. That car horn can't protect you forever, you orange bastard.

9/10

15. Interlude: Penthouse

Dear Penthouse: Hi. Does anyone check in on you, just you? I'm here to say I think you're important and you provide a necessary outlet for men to brag about being perverts. At least before the Youtube comment section existed.

Thanks for everything,

mytastessuck

8/10

16. Sex Murder Party

Ooooo, this track puts me in a funky mood. Like, there's a part but there's sex there...and MURDER. So you know it's an awesome party. Kick-ass, right? I know it's kick-ass. Keep dancing, people.

11/10

17. She's My Collar

Pretty sexy song. Gotta love people vauging about being used in a song. That's why we love Offspring, that's why we love Damon on his knees onstage. Hey, there was a post that said Noodle wrote this song about her girlfriend. That was an excellent post. Well done.

9/10

18. Interlude: The Elephant

I SAID GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD!

8/10

19. Hallelujah Money

Ah, the technical first single. Remember when they said that they weren't going to put this song on the album? Anyway, this is exactly the song we needed after The Incident occurred. Benjamin manages to calm down an entire populace while Damon just fearfully wonders what our future will be like...and he's in the UK. This song is one long terrifying lullaby to an entire country...until the end, anyway.

75/10

20. We Got The Power

A great way to remind listeners that no matter what's happening, no matter who's in charge, we have the power change everything. An excellent message for people who were still recovering from The Incident.

10/10

21. Interlude: New World

Okay, the bonus tracks. Should be nothing special here, right? Just some B-sides and I've never shown favoritism towards B-sides, right?

8/10

22. The Apprentice

A nice song from the same Rag n' Bone Man who brought us "Human". Zebra manages to lay down some nice rhymes as Ray BLK backs them both up with the force of her voice. These guys should form a team with how well they work together. Oh, they should make a virtual band! All they need to do is find an artist...

9/10

23. Halfway To The Halfway House

A very nice song if a bit overshadowed by the others on the album. Still, Peven can't be beat when it comes to crooning and he raises a song from a solid C to a B.

8/10

24. Out of Body

This song had to grow on me also but when it did...lord, this song is weird. Hypnotic suggestions, telephone tones, the song starts then Zebra jumps in to help then who is this person?! Why are people applauding?! Who are you people?! Why are there so many crows gathering outside my house?!

60/10

25. Ticker Tape

Well well well, look who's back. Damon returns with his old friend Kali to join the accuser of the vain Carly Simon to beg us to stay on the album. Sorry Damon, but I got places to do and people to go. There's nothing you can do to convince me to stick around after how long this album already is.

9/10

26. Circle of Friendz

Huh. Seems like a riot is going on. Weird for Gorillaz to get this real. What, this guy is just going to keep saying Circle of Friendz again and again? Is this supposed to affect me? Get real. It'll take a lot more than a nice voice and implications to...

To...

...

...Maybe I should listen to the album again.

11/10

Album score: 25/10

Damn, that took a while. Shouldn't be the case next week when we cover The Now Now. See you then!

#gorillaz #humanz #music #review

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aforrestofstuff · 5 years ago

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Okay! I have a burning question for you, my dude. Music is my life, and I wanna know what kind of music the OPM casts listen to. Thanks, my guy!

I had a feeling this would be inevitable lol. I don’t really know a whole lot about music or genres or anything like that so I’m just gonna give you a rundown of each character individually and some song recs along with that just to smooth things out a little. Thanks for your ask, by the way! ❤️ Now my playlists will be put to good use.

A Brief Rundown of the Major OPM Characters’ Music Tastes:

Blast: hc that he doesn’t even have ears since he never fucking LISTENS

Terrible Tornado: Stuff that makes her feel powerful. Loud vocals and good instrumentals. Also, she’s a little angsty since she’s saltier than the gotdamn Pacific almost all of the time. (Recs: Florence and the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Susanne Sundfør - Delirious, Florence and the Machine - What Kind of Man, Kali Uchis - Dead to Me, Let’s Eat Grandma - Falling Into Me)

Fubuki: some of that real classy shit. Slow songs that are nice to just have a cup of tea with. Nothing too meaty or fast-paced, she enjoys taking a moment to breathe every once and a while since life gets pretty hectic when you’re managing a gang of some 30 hooligans. (Recs: Wes - Midnight Low, any song from Lana Del Rey’s entire discography lol, Florence and the Machine - Grace, The Marìas - I Don’t Know You, Yellow House - Ain’t Gonna Call, Feng Suave - Toking, Dozing)

Silverfang: Stuff from his time. I hc that he was a bit of a party animal back in his prime so he’s gotta have those grooves. Disco to the extremo. Also, another hc: Garou absolutely hates his music. He would play it during training and Garou would contemplate homicide. (Recs: Frankie Valli - Grease, The Edgar Winter Group - Free Ride, KC and the Sunshine Band - I’m Your Boogie Man, Matthew Wilder - Break My Stride, The Main Ingredient - Everybody Plays the Fool, Andrea True Connection - More, More, More)

Bomb: save as Silverfang, although I hc that Bomb was a little more of a nerd growing up. Still, he never missed out on a good party. (Additional Recs: KC and the Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight, The Trammps - Disco Inferno, Tierra - Together, Cornelius Bros and Sister Rose - Too Late to Turn Back Now)

Atomic Samurai: Old shit. Shit older than Silverfang. He’s really not that old, but his soul is fucking ancient and he’s got that classic “grrr music these days sucks” kind of shithead attitude. (Recs: Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle, Dion - Runaround Sue, The Carpenters - The End of the World, The Band - The Weight)

Child Emperor: Upbeat synth. Stuff to listen to while he’s working on his machines and whatnot. Probably has meaty beats to keep him in tune with what he’s doing, like working around a clock. Probably some groovy citypop in there too. (Recs: Taeko Ohnuki - 4:00 AM, Junko Ohashi - Telephone Number, Tatsuro Yamashita - Magic Ways, Hiroyuki Sawano - NEXUS, Superfly - Kakusei, Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love)

Metal Knight: Intrumentals that Disney villains listen to. Deep, dark shit that makes you feel sad. He probably feeds off of negative emotion. What a toolbag. (Recs: Lucas King - Sociopath, Abel Korzeniowski- Table for Two, Max Richter - Never Goodbye, Max Richter - She Remembers, Evelyn Stein - Quiet Resource, Mac Quayle - Adagio in G Minor)

King: video game soundtracks, obviously. Might be some electro funk in there too, as a treat. (Recs: Metal Gear Solid 3 OST - Snake Eater, Mick Gordon - Rip and Tear, Xenoblade Chronicles OST - Main Theme, Persona 5 OST - Last Surprise, Daft Punk - Verdis Quo, Toby Fox - Hopes and Dreams, Disasterpeace - Prologue, iamthekidyouknowwhatimean - Run, Darren Korb - Old Friends)

Zombieman: Dad Music. Old rock that makes you wanna rail some lines of white thunder and dance on top of a car. He’d be reluctant to try out new stuff but does so nevertheless. Just a little bit of weird alternative here and there. (Recs: Poison - Unskinny Bop, Mötley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood, Black Sabbath - War Pigs, Def Leppard - Animal, CRX - Walls, MGMT - Little Dark Age, Pink Floyd - Money, Queens of the Stone Age - Villains of Circumstance)

Drive Knight: Dark synth, obviously. Need I say more? (Recs: El Tigr3 - She Swallowed Burning Coals, Trevor Something - Enjoy the Silence, Greg Drombrowski - Devour, GUNSHIP - Woken Furies, GUNSHIP - Thrasher, Carpenter Brut - Invasion A.D., Kavinsky - Nightcall)

Pig God: this guy probably just listens to ASMR of people eating food lol.

Superalloy Darkshine: Upbeat stuff that’s good for exercise; loving those new jams along with some of the old. He’s got a pretty groovy style. (Diane Ross - Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Saint Motel - Puzzle Pieces, CRUISR - All Over, Barry White - Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up, Sade - Kiss of Life)

Watchdog Man: 10 hour loop of wolves howling on a summer night.

Flashy Flash: classical. Some nice instrumentals to listen to while training. Stuff that preferably doesn’t have any or very little lyrics so it’s not too busy on his ears while he’s fantasizing about killing someone. (Recs: Vaughn Williams - The Lark Ascending, Debussy - Rêverie, Grieg - Peace of the Woods, André Laplante - Une Barque sur L’Ocean)

Metal Bat: Modern alternative. A little bit harder than say, Mumen and Kama, but not as hard as Zombieman or Death Gatling. He’s that middle ground where he’s still got some real bangers, but Zenko can listen as well. He’ll play this stuff loudly as he’s doing chores and working out, no headphones ever. It gets pretty annoying. (Recs: Foals - Exits, The Blue Stones - Black Holes, Solid Ground, CRX - Broken Bones, Jungle - Happy Man, The Strokes - Reptilia, We Are Trees - Girlfriend)

Genos: synth. But not just any synth, some heavy, fast-paced synth that’s just like him: speedy, relentless, and powerful. He listens to shit that’ll make you wanna get up and start killing Terminators. Probably. There’s some other synths in the mix too because we love a three-dimensional king. (Recs: Carpenter Brut - Division Ruine, The Protomen - I Still Believe, Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth, Gunship - Tech Noir, TWRP - Phantom Racer, Le Castle Vania - Red Circle)

Tanktop Master: Dad music but the type of dad music that makes you think your dad was a sappy nerd back in the day. Long tracks that are good for workouts. (Tears for Fears - Woman in Chains, Pink Floyd - Us and Them, Duran Duran - Ordinary World, Billy Idol - Eyes without a Face, A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran, The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky, Tears for Fears - Sowing the Seeds of Love)

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Pop. Dance music. He doesn’t really get to listen to a lot of music in prison, so he holds on to whatever he can and savors every second of it. (Coldplay - Talk, Bruno Mars - Runaway Baby, Lady Gaga - Bad Romance, Flo Milli - Beef Flomix, Doja Cat - Say So)

Mumen Rider: Hes a lighthearted, soft boy. Likes some fluffy indie tunes. It helps to motivate him when working out or doing hero stuff. He might need to cry every once in a while though, so there’s some sad songs in the mix too. (Recs: Varsity - The Dogs Only Listen to Him, The The - This is the Day, Amarante - Don’t Look Back, Alvvays - Saved by a Waif, The Monkees - As We Go Along, Acid Ghost - Hide my Face, Mogwai - Take Me Somewhere Nice)

Sonic: same as Flash. He’s a little more hip with the times however, so he’s got some more groovy, electronic instrumentals to listen to in addition to some elegant stuff and isn’t opposed to having a little bit of lyrics sprinkled in there as well. In fact, he’s not opposed to uppity pop either. He thinks dancing is frivolous but he secretly does it when he thinks nobody is looking. (Additional Recs: Odesza - Bloom, Pretty Lights - One Day They’ll Know [Odesza Remix], BØRNS - Electric Love, Hembree - Culture, The Cinematic Orchestra - Arrival of the Birds)

Garou: same as Metal Bat. Bang let him have a little MP3 player during his time at the dojo and has since collected a few songs on there. They’re very near and dear to his heart since it’s one of the few good things that came from his absolute disaster of a childhood. (Additional Recs: Foals - Inhaler, CRX - Slow Down, Deep Sea Arcade - Close to Me, Gorillaz - Empire Ants, The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger, Glass Animals - Take A Slice)

Death Gatling: Shit your old Vietnam-vet grandpa would blast on the back of his F150. He gives me self-righteous asshole vibes, if I’m honest. Like, don’t get me wrong, I like Death Gatling, but he seems like the type of trailer park-dwelling sewer rat to carry a revolver into a Walmart for “self defense” and that’s probably the type of music he listens to, too. (Recs: Megadeth - Trust, Megadeth - Angry Again, Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son, Glen Campbell - Southern Nights, Mötley Crüe - Kickstart My Heart, Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel the Noize)

One-Shotter: I hard hc that he had an emo phase he never quite grew out of. He doesn’t quite listen to emo anymore but he’s still into that alternative shit. Homeboy also likes some slow tunes every once and a while because he’s an emotional dude who’s not afraid of a good cry. (Recs: Anything from Blink-182, Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?, MGMT - When You Die, Mazzy Star - Fade Into You, Cigarettes After Sex - Dreaming of You, Yon Ort - Other Matter)

Lightning Max: Same as Genos but without the terminator-killing. Fast-paced stuff because he’s a fast lightning dude. A little more upbeat because he’s not as much as an edgelord as Genos, however. (Additional Recs: Carpenter Brut - Hang’em All, The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize, Worn Tin - Sensitivity, B.E.R. - The Night Begins to Shine, Martin Hall - Different Kind of Love)

Stinger: he’s all about that FUNK! Stuff that gets him moving! Stuff that makes him wanna dance! (Recs: Daft Punk - Doin’ it Right, TWRP - Body Image, Wild Cherry - Play that Funky Music, Chemise - She Can’t Love You, Saga - Wind Him Up, Saga - On the Loose, TWRP - All Night Forever)

Okamaitachi: they give me electro vibes! New, modern shit that’s good to dance to or to just sit down and have a listen! Also, some shit that’ll probably play in a coming-of-age teen movie or something. They don’t really vibe with heavy music and that’s alright, babey! Keeping it light and bouncy. (Recs: Tei Shi - Bassically, Varsity - Must Be Nice, Class Actress - Weekend, CHVRCHES - Richard Pryor, Alvvays - Marry Me, Archie, Sobs - Telltale Signs, Goth Babe - Sometimes, ALASKALASKA - Meateater)

Iaian: Nice, low tunes that are good for meditation and to be used for background noise during training sessions. He never really sits down to listen to music, it’s always in the background of something else he’s doing so he prefers to have some soft beats that don’t really interfere with his senses. Tunes so quiet, he sometimes uses them as lullabies; especially since the trauma of losing his arm has since made it hard to sleep. (Recs: Boy Scouts - Saddest Boy, Susanne Sundfør - Mantra, Vashiti Bunyan - If I Were the Same but Different, Starman Jr. - Blue Fairy, Patrick Watson - Je te Laisserai des Mots, Sibylle Baier - I Lost Something in the Hills)

Bushidrill: same as Atomic Samurai just without the shitty attitude. He’s happy to listen to some newer stuff, he just doesn’t like it and that’s okay, baby! Probably some classy shit your wise old grandpa would listen to. (Recs: Dean Martin - Volare, Dion - The Wanderer, Peppino Gagliardi - Che Vuole Questra Musica Stasera, anything from Luis Miguel lol, Franco Micalizzi - Sadness Theme)

Amai Mask: probably just listens to his own music like a putz. If not, he’s listening to the sound equivalent of glittering diamonds. He’s probably got this shit playing at the end of a long day while he’s chilling in a hot bath or something. (Recs: Fergie - Glamorous, Rita Ora - Hot Right Now, Lana Del Rey - Freak, Lana Del Rey - Art Deco, Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards)

Saitama: He doesn’t listen to music much anymore, sadly. He did, however, have a killer motivational mix to get him through his vigorous training prior to becoming a hero. (Recs: Paul Engemann - Push it to the Limit, Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’, College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero, Joe Esposito - You’re the Best Around, Survivor - Eye of the Tiger, The Bee Gees - Nights on Broadway)

Here’s the playlist with all of these songs in order (mostly):

It’s on YouTube because I’m allergic to Spotify. I’ve got a doctor’s note. Also, all of my other playlists are on my little profile thingy so if you want to listen to my pile then go right ahead.

Thanks for your ask, my dude! ❤️ this took up ALL of my energy lol but it was fun.

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readersguidetotheuniverse · 4 years ago

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Folie a Trois: a group read of... More Than Maybe by Erin Hahn

The supporting characters

Ariadna: From Zack to Meg, Phil to Marcus... I really liked that the supporting characters had background and depth... for a YA romance novel, that it is. Ok, they are not the deepest, most exceptional characters –they are a little bit stereotyped, and everything is sooo rose-coloured tinted–, but I appreciate how the relationships between them are depicted and how every one of them has their own unique quirks and background story. Nevertheless, I must add... I think Hahn’s attempt to make all the characters these goody-two-shoes has made some characters sort of a decaf version of what they should realistically be, see Charlie Greenly, Phil Josephs, Cullen... At times they were so soft they became even boring to me. I understand Hahn’s religious views, but honestly, no one is that good.

Alicia: I liked the supporting characters quite a lot, actually, all of them. In many young adult novels you find rather flat secondary characters that only exist to complement the main characters, but not in this one. All of them were complex, with their own defined personalities and their own stories. There were a few moments when I got a bit irritated by someone's actions, Cullen uploading Luke's song behind his back, for example. But real people are flawed and make mistakes so it's only fair that fictional characters do, too.

Marina: First off, I have to say I loved all the secondary characters. I have to agree with Ariadna though, they are not overly deep but they get you right on the feels. I especially enjoyed seeing the different relationships between them –Zach and Cullen <3–. To be honest I found it a bit frustrating that they all kept telling Vada how amazing she is and how well she’s doing but it takes Luke, a person whom she’s officially met recently, to stand up to her dead-beat father. Talking about fathers, Phil is an amazing father figure and I’m really glad he at least encouraged Vada to follow her dreams. On a side note, can I just say that the first time I read about Cullen and Zach I pictured a more lanky version of Emmett Cullen dating Zeke (from high School Musical)? And that’s why I found it hilariously amusing when they started talking about Teen Wolf. Whatever happened to those DVDs?!

The ‘Bad Apple’ club aka Charlie Greenly

Ariadna: We all grasp to certain extent how business —corporate, big-money businesses— work, and it is understandable Charlie’s nasty partners took advantage of a teen’s rage burst, but, oh, man, how it bothered me when they tried to ruin poor Phil’s fund-raiser... What bothered me the most, though, is how Charlie Greenly was that blind, how he couldn’t see, beyond his own interests, how important the Loud Lizard was for Luke, his friends and for Ann Arbor, or to what extent the whole ‘Break for You’ issue bothered his own son. I honestly think his heroic act at the end doesn’t quite redeem him of the harm he has done. Besides, Charlie was supposed to be a Punk-rock star... What’s really left of that personality? Has her wife and kids completely transformed him into a dull wimp? Not quite believable, this character is.

Alicia: Charlie made me so mad at him that sometimes I wanted to throw the book across the room. I understand parents always think they know best, it's in their parent DNA. But it was really frustrating and irritating how he kept trying to get Luke to do whatever he wanted, without considering what his son actually wanted. He kept trying to convince Luke to do something he had stated time and time he didn't want to do and was not going to do. He used him for his own interests and treated him kinda badly just cause he didn't fit with his own expectations for him. Realistic as it could be for most people, it's still shitty. It's almost cathartic how he redeems himself at the end by quitting Bad Apple to support his son but that doesn't change his shitty behavior towards Luke during most of the novel.

Marina: I mean Charlie didn’t seem the brightest of the Greenly family, to be honest. I think he should probably listen to his sons more (and his wife). I find it hard to believe he didn’t know what he was getting into. He was a famous punk-rocker at a time where you had to be clever and sharp-witted, like, is he smart enough to stay away from hard drugs and keep his career afloat (and later become an accomplished music producer) but not know how to choose business partners? Apparently. And talking about his previous life as a punk-star… Can he stop trying to live his life through Luke? It finally dawned on him in the end, yes, but throughout the book Luke (and later Cullen) explicitly told him he didn’t want to be famous, it doesn’t excuse his behaviour!

Soundtrack

Ariadna: While some of the tracks on this book’s OST are not my cup of tea (see Demi and Taylor), I must confess: I’ve been listening to TøP the whole week. Hahn got me at Car Radio *shrugs*. Working in the book industry, I’ve always felt books, when possible, should offer something extra. I really love that this book, even more considering it is addressed to teens and YA, offers this little something to connect it to the readers’ real world, to make the story even more realistic. I think it is a loss that the book itself doesn’t include a QR code or a link to a playlist itself, but it is an easy search away in Spotify, thanks to some nice reader that has already put it up!

Alicia: I just had this one little issue with the music/artists mentioned in the novel: Vada hates Stevie Nicks and consequently I hate Vada. There won't be any hate towards Stevie Nicks in my presence. She is an excellent artist and I will not hear otherwise. Other than that I actually loved how important music in general is in the novel and how many real actual songs are shared along the story. I expected to find mostly alternative/indie bands so there was no surprise there. And music can tell a lot about someone so it was interesting to see the music Luke and Vada listen to, to understand them better. Also it was really nice to get so many songs in so many different styles to actually discover new songs myself. I'm really happy about how music really does play an important part in the book.

Marina: I’ve mentioned I like it when authors add their little soundtracks to the books but this one goes far beyond that. You get to listen to the songs throughout the characters’ actions and feelings and the music is not only an add-on but it becomes part of the plot. Which, granted, it’s a book about a girl who writes reviews about bands and a boy that writes songs, how can music not be part of the book? But it goes beyond the “here’s a song that inspired this chapter/book/scene” to a basic subplot. Coincidentally, we all looked up different songs on Spotify because we hadn’t heard them before and we found a playlist made by a reader, we hope you enjoy it too!

Vada and Luke’s relationship

Ariadna: It is interesting to read a YA romance novel in which the main action doesn’t revolve 100% around the romance. It is way healthier than most: both Vada and Luke have clear goals and motivations that are not biased by their relationship, they motivate and encourage each other, there is no narcissistic chauvinist - submissive flower dynamics going on —thank the gods–, and they are supercute and honest with themselves. However —I always have one of these–, it is still a naive teen relationship, mostly in terms of the plotting and the writing. Surprisingly —see the irony— they both have had crushes on each other for years, but they haven’t acted upon it until now. They NEVER fail, get mad, do any bad deeds... ANYTHING. Are they even teenagers? Honestly, I hate when the characters in a book are these holier-than-thou perfection vessels. Added to the not-really-that-big-of-a-deal problems (what happened with the instagram issue? What about Vada’s funds for college? They don’t even really get *really* mad because of the Bad Apple thingy...), they feel kind of bland and not too realistic for my tastes.

Alicia: At the beginning I thought it was a bit rushed, how quickly they trusted each other considering they had barely interacted before. Even if they had a crush on the other that doesn't mean they actually knew that person, not really. As they spent more time together and got to know each other, their relationship evolved pretty organically and naturally, to a point when it just made sense. It was really cute to see how they got closer through awkward encounters and how their passion for music helped them connect and relate to the other. Having read many young adult romances, it gets old very fast. The stories get kinda predictable and hard to believe. This one also had some predictable moments, almost all of them do, but overall it was a really nice love story, one I could actually believe.

Marina: To be honest, I expected this book to be less about the music and more about the relationship between Luke and Vada. I think what Erin Hahn accomplished in this book is to show a much more mature relationship than I expected. I thought this would be your typical YA-Romance with a lot of drama and kissing, but instead I got a slow-burn story (so slow, it felt like moving through molasses) with depth, insecurities and, yes, drama. I think both these characters are more mature than expected on a YA romance novel and it was surprisingly refreshing. You still get some teenage-y sub-plots, i.e. the prom or even the 15-minutes of fame; but it doesn’t take away from the blossoming relationship between Luke and Vada.

The Grass is Greenly and Behind the Music

Ariadna: I must be growing too old for this s**t, but I don’t get the whole podcast/blog thing. I get it, social networking does this kind of thing: turning a nobody into an internet sensation in a matter of days, but... I agree with Alicia, it is too much of a coincidence (one of the deus-ex-machina I so much hate) that both the main characters are internet-known... in a blog, nonetheless! Maybe Hahn could have used precisely this internet presence to make Vada and Luke meet each other, instead of the too-worn-out high-school cliché. And Marina has made me think... maybe some interludes as Cullen’s podcasts, letting us know some behind-the-scenes gossip (The Lindsay issue, Luke and Vada’s first kiss becoming viral, and so on...), would have spiced up the novel a bit more.

Alicia: Okay here's the part I just didn't believe and kind of threw me off a bit. What are the chances of a music blog and a podcast, both run by teenagers of the same age in the same city in the same bar, becoming really popular and actually viral. Who even reads blogs anymore anyway? (Says while writing in a blog). It was just quite hard to believe so many people read Behind the Music that even ROLLING STONE became interested. Yeah sure this extremely known successful music magazine wants a fresh out of high school blogger to work for them. And then the podcast. What could two teens have to say to have a podcast so popular that when Cullen uploads Luke's song it literally gets millions of reproductions and attracts attention everywhere. And both of them being run by two people working in the same place, going to the same high school… the world is not actually that small. Sorry it's just kind of extremely unrealistic and didn't particularly like that part.

Marina: Seeing the “behind-the-scenes” of the day to day of a podcast was very interesting. I guess it would have been better if Cullen told the story as he is the one that does most of the work. Also, how did they get that famous? Is it just because of their dad? I don’t really get it. On the other side, I find it incredibly unbelievable that a teenage girl has that much input on a music blog that isn’t even hers and gets to go to concerts and stuff like that. I get that Phil is a cool guy but how come the blog is so famous and he doesn’t really care about it or mentions it much during the book besides sending Vada places? I just don’t understand that.

Overall

Ariadna: Honestly, I’m not one for YA romance novels, I think I’ve outgrown them by far, and they usually bore me. That said, this book has surprised me for good. It is a light read, doesn’t follow the genre clichés, it doesn’t make everything revolve around the main characters’ love interest, the supporting characters have personalities of their own and it has a wide-ranged well-put playlist, which I think is great for teens and young adults to read. I particularly didn’t like the religious issues coming up from time to time, but, overall, this is the best written book of the three we’ve already read for Folie a Trois, and that’s a lot to say!

Alicia: Overall it was a really cute book. Initially it took me a while to get into it cause the plot wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, that was a tad disappointing. But then once you begin knowing the characters and they begin to know each other as well it's quite captivating and easy and quick to read. I really enjoyed the love story, I loved how diverse the characters are and how they interacted. I really like how the plot develops, too. If you're looking for a soft, cute, easy enjoyable read I definitely recommend this one.

Marina: As most YA books that I read, it was entertaining but it didn't change my life. I really did like Vada and Luke's relationship, as I said I find it more mature for this genre; the music was a big highlight and the drama wasn't overwhelmingly dumb (as is the case in some other books). Overall a good book for summer and a light read for any other season ;)

#folie a trois #group reading #group read #goodreads #feel good #music #romance #love #ya #ya book #young adult #ya novel #more than maybe #erin hahn #book #beach read #readers guide to the universe #rg2universe #rg2u

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aroworlds · 5 years ago

Text

The Vampire Conundrum, Part Two

When Rowan Ross is pressured into placing an aromantic pride mug on his desk, he doesn't know how to react when his co-workers don't notice it. Don't they realise he spent a weekend rehearsing answers for questions unasked? Then again, if nobody knows what aromanticism is, can't he display a growing collection of pride merch without a repeat of his coming out as trans? Be visible with impunity through their ignorance?

He can endure their thinking him a fan of archery, comic-book superheroes and glittery vampire movies. It's not like anyone in the office is an archer. (Are they?) But when a patch on his bag results in a massive misconception, correcting it means doing the one thing he most fears: making a scene.

After all, his name isn't Aro.

Contains: One trans, bisexual frayromantic alongside an office of well-meaning cis co-workers who think they're being supportive and inclusive.

Content Advisory: This story hinges on the way most cishet alloromantic people know nothing about aromanticism and the ways many trans-accepting cis people fail to best communicate their acceptance. In other words, expect a series of queer, trans and aro microaggressions. There are no depictions or mentions of sexual attraction beyond the words "allosexual" and "bisexual", but there are non-detailed references to Rowan's previous experiences with romance.

Length: 3, 737 words (part two of two).

Note: Posted for @aggressivelyarospec‘s AggressivelyArospectacular 2019.

Romance, too, feels like one of the mechanisms by which a dangerous trans body can be rendered more acceptable to cis folks.

“His name’s Aro,” Melanie says after lunch, showing a new volunteer around the office. She pats Rowan on the shoulder as she walks behind his chair, startling him enough that the clipping path he’s making around a photo of Damien’s head goes veering off to the side. “He does our website, our flyers and the information guides we send out. Aro like from the Twilight movies!”

Introductions once only encompassed Melanie’s habit of overly-stressing pronouns when referencing him—a dysphoria-triggering reminder that she doesn’t think him masculine enough for people to assume it. Isn’t that bad enough without her also getting his name wrong?

He sighs, frustrated. Complaining about this, when trans people are in desperate want of a working environment free of outright antagonism and discrimination, feels unreasonable. Hell, Rowan knows aromantics who’ll revel in being named “Aro”, so isn’t his hurt just pettiness? Isn’t this why he’s no longer welcome at home, a man too intolerant of his family’s mistakes? How many times did they tell him that his harping on about little things demonstrates a concerning lack of gratitude for their acceptance?

His co-workers do seem to believe in Rowan’s masculinity; he shouldn’t take that for granted.

Instead, he feels like he’s failing at being both transgender and aromantic.

After a fair amount of editing, he places Damien’s image in the brochure mock-up and exports to PDF. The office will make suggestions, some useful, some ignorant and some so absurd that Rowan will laugh with his friends later on, but that’s fine. He can’t expect otherwise in a workplace where everyone considers him possessed of unknowable ability with computers. They’re good people, in the main, and they care about their work.

It’s just complicated, and Rowan hates the feeling that complicated is the best cis people will let him get to a normalised acceptance.

“Aro? An Arrow fan called Aro? Really? Do you like comics or are you one of those people only into DC TV?”

Rowan looks up from attaching his PDF to an email to find the volunteer sitting on a creaking office chair and crab-walking it over to Rowan’s desk. “Comics?”

“Oh, good.” The volunteer sighs as if in relief. “I mean, the TV show? It isn’t terrible—better than most of DC’s movies, at least—but I’m so tired of people who call themselves fans but have never touched a comic book.”

Rowan glances at his journal cover, ponders its possible similarity to the show’s motif and nearly bursts out laughing. He’s never read a comic and doesn’t plan on doing so. He prefers indie podcasts and audiobooks on account of increased representation and greater ability to sew and cook while listening. “I’m not an Arrow fan. Sorry.”

Another show about cis people possessed of everyone-should-pair-up amatonormativity?

Hard pass.

“You’re not?” The volunteer gapes, waving his hand towards Rowan’s cluster of pride mugs. Three, now. Only one contains coffee, which feels like a terrible oversight. “Is this a joke, then? Are they getting you arrow stuff because of your name? Like some office thing?”

Aro.

His name is not Aro.

Rowan once thought the concept of snapping a mere storytelling device, something as ludicrous or impossible as “glittering eyes” or “romantic interest that lasts after getting to know someone”. At best an experience had by people without a brain that doesn’t devote most of its time to screaming alerts at the prospect of anything dangerous. Absurd, irrational, void of any real-life relevance.

Not even with his family has he felt this chilling, all-encompassing moment of enough.

He looks back at his computer, attaches a second PDF file to his email and, before he considers pesky things like consequences, clicks send. Then Rowan climbs up on his office chair, steps up onto the desk and whistles like a country boy who owned a border collie prone to sneaking off the property and rounding up the neighbour’s sheep.

Everyone in the office gapes up at him with a motley assortment of parted lips, unblinking eyes and, in Melanie’s case, the pointing of a long, vermillion-polished fingernail.

Up high, the room reeks of nesting rodents and the popcorn ceiling desperately wants refinishing.

Now Rowan’s brain tells his limbs to shake and his chest to heave; of course, he thinks as he shoves his hands behind his back, anxiety kicks in after he’s neck-deep in it! “My … my name is Rowan. I chose it.” He looks at the vent on the opposite wall, fighting to sound collected. Is that black mould? “Dad told me if I rejected my deadname, I was rejecting them. That I was being cruel and selfish. I earnt my name!” He stops, gasping for breath like a hooked fish—which, given his terror, feels far too appropriate a simile. “My identity is aro, short for aromantic, like being queer—one way of my being queer. So ... there’s a PDF booklet in your inbox about aromanticism. Read it! I’m proud of being aro, but you need to call me by the name I chose! It’s Rowan!”

He jumps down off the desk. The creaking laminate and the thud of his dress shoes, a little too large for Rowan’s feet, sound abominably loud in the sepulchrally-quiet room. Heading past giddy into faint, but pushed on by a heedlessness of the “this can’t possibly get worse because I’m going to be fired” variety, Rowan snatches up his satchel and reaches into the side pocket to pull out his handful of print leaflets. He drops one in the lap of the gaping volunteer, tosses the rest on an empty desk for luddites who prefer paper, and returns to his chair.

Seven sets of speechless eyes bore holes through his skull, shoulders and spine.

Rowan jams on his headphones, opens his no-romance metal playlist and turns his music up to a volume just short of deafening before queuing new posts to the project’s website.

When he invented the God of Trans Men as flippant rhetoric to cope with Melanie’s questions, is it right to pray to him?

***

Two hours later, doing his best to radiate an aura of do not disturb on pain of your bloody death, Rowan fights to pay attention to the last event write-up. Leaving early means asking permission and walking down the row of desks, risking stares and comments; he instead corrects Melanie’s idiosyncratic punctuation. Didn’t Melanie go to school at a time when they taught more than English comprehension? How doesn’t she know when not to use an apostrophe?

There’ll be consequences. Warnings? A formal discussion in the private office the supervisors only use for interviews? A request that he undergo counselling? A strong recommendation for psychiatric assessment? Firing? It isn’t like they can’t throw a rock and hit thousands of people under the age of forty with general computer skills and design ability who aren’t prone to standing on desks to make unwanted announcements.

No. Focus on the damn comma splices.

Should he ask his psychiatrist for the soonest possible appointment? New meds?

A tap on the shoulder makes Rowan’s head threaten to brush the probably-asbestos-riddled ceiling; he gasps and yanks off his headphones, trembling.

Melanie stands beside his chair, holding out her phone in its glossy pink case. “Those words that are underlined? Can I click on them to find out what they mean, like on a website? Like ... al-lo-sexual?”

“Hyperlinks in an interactive PDF—the file on your phone—work the same way as on a website,” Rowan says without thinking: in the last three months, he’s been asked this ten times. “If you click on those links, they’ll take you to a glossary at the end of the document with definitions.”

Damien sits facing his usual computer, his head tilted as if watching out the corner of his eye.

Melanie smiles the expression of a woman in an alternate dimension where Rowan doesn’t engage in embarrassing outbursts. “You’re so good at all this stuff, Rowan.” She stresses his name just enough that he can pretend she didn’t. “Where did you learn it all?”

He once tried to explain his philosophy of clicking on things only to realise that while the concept of generational divides requires excessive generalisation, a difference exists in terms of his willingness to fearless experimentation with electronic devices and programs. “School. Uni.”

“You’re so lucky. School was nothing like that when I was a girl. You have so many more opportunities now. And identities.” Melanie sighs and pushes a wisp of grey hair back from her eyebrows. “It’s good, it really is.”

Rowan blinks, startled into silence by a rare glimpse of validation stripped of performance and demonstration.

He hadn’t thought anyone here capable of it.

“It says that some people feel repulsed by romance? Are you like that? Should we do something? Do we need to not talk about romance in the office? Like, if I describe my daughter dating her boyfriend, not that I want to, is that bad? Do we need to hold a meeting? Damien—Damien—”

Damien turns, wearing the blinded look of a rabbit frozen in a spotlight. “Yes...?”

For how long has Damien worked with Melanie? For how long has the office rolled with Melanie’s interruptions and proclamations, her meetings called about the slightest of issues? For how long has the office accepted Shelby’s incessant reminding and Damien’s inability to surrender event photography to someone who knows how to modify their flash settings? Isn’t there a chance that they’ll tolerate Rowan’s occasional moments of desk-blathering?

A trans aro should be able to sew a patch on his bag reading “aro” without provoking cis weirdness. Since when does someone read a new word on his bag and assume that’s now his name? Isn’t that another over-the-top demonstration made by awkward cis people trying to prove their acceptance, something that’s never made Rowan feel safe?

Even when he’s aromantic, he never gets to avoid cissexism.

He slides his hands between the seat and his legs, aware of Melanie’s once again drawing the office’s unbroken attention. “I, personally, don’t care if people talk about their romances,” he says, certain that Damien needn’t answer Melanie about meetings, “but I do care when people assume I must want one. I do care when Sh … some of you just keep asking if I’m dating anyone.”

Rowan long set aside the need to bother with romance. He isn’t aromantic in the way most people first think of the word, as he does fall in love, but it describes his frayromanticism nonetheless. Why put himself through the inevitable messy, angry break-up when his partners don’t understand why what started as romance ends up to him as a friendship? When dating isn’t without trans-related challenges, why force himself into a type of relationship that he knows won’t last?

Romance, too, feels like one of the mechanisms by which a dangerous trans body can be rendered more acceptable to cis folks, in the same way it sanitises his equally-threatening bisexuality. If queers are holding hands and exchanging rings, just like cis and heterosexual couples, they’re safe.

He wants to be normal, but not that normal.

Melanie surprises him again by nodding. Opaque red only colours the corners of her lips; the worn centres reveal the brownish-pink beneath. “Like how we now don’t assume everyone’s—what’s the fancy word you use for not being you?”

“Cis. Yeah.”

“At my first job, I never dared yeah my elders. Can I ask what’s this a-sexual thing? Not-sexual? That’s a thing that can go with your a-ro-manti-cism? Am I saying it right? Is that something people can be?” Melanie grabs the volunteer’s vacated chair and wheels herself up to Rowan’s desk. “Tell me about this. Please.”

Damien gives a theatrically deep sigh, winks at Rowan and turns back to his keyboard.

Rowan’s tangle of feelings bewilders him too much to be simple relief, but he doesn’t appear to be at immediate risk of losing his job.

***

“We need to have a meeting!” Melanie announces ten days later, striding up to where Damien peers over Rowan’s shoulder to approve the touch-ups on a series of scanned photos. Rowan grasps the want to have a section on the website showcasing past events, but surely Damien’s film-camera predecessors weren’t all unable to take decent pictures? “Today. Perhaps before lunch?”

“Do we?” Damien doesn’t bother to turn his head. “What’s the number on the urgency scale, remembering that whiteboard markers aren’t a five?”

“I’m aro-ace.” Melanie stresses the words, beaming with the confidence of a child presenting a new finger-painted masterpiece. “I didn’t know, but I definitely am. I’m aromantic and asexual.”

“I’m glad for you.” Now Damien faces her, scratching his shock of unruly brown hair. “I don’t know why this needs a meeting? Do you want something addressed?”

Rowan leans back in his chair, too startled to do anything but watch. Melanie’s interrogation of him about all things a-spec over the last few days left him certain that she was questioning, but he didn’t expect this announcement—or Damien’s reaction to it.

“I’ve been reading, and I sent around a list of links everyone else should read, too. We must do something about our website. And, of course, everyone should know I’m aro-ace, and then let people ask any questions. Then we should consider changes to our submission forms, and then...”

Already, Melanie has done more to integrate her identity into the office and its projects than Rowan ever dared risk. Why, then, does he feel as though he’s being pressed inside a metal suit three sizes too small? Shouldn’t the end result be worth enduring a staff meeting in which she announces she’s aro-ace? Melanie being Melanie, she’ll gladly answer questions about aromanticism. Doesn’t that give Rowan everything he wanted—ability to be out as aromantic but someone else’s dealing with allo nonsense?

Matt’s right.

Rowan’s just a coward.

Damien nods at Rowan. “What do you think about that?”

“Uh...” Rowan draws a delaying breath, fighting against a brain too bewildered to be useful in forming comprehensible speech. “Uh … you’d have to run form changes past someone higher up, wouldn’t you? We have to ask about everything else? But...”

He doesn’t name Melanie a friend, but fellow aromantics aren’t common enough that Rowan will reject a companion—even if they’re cis and have subjected him to half a year’s discomfort, anxiety and alienation. He slides his restless hands under his legs, biting his lip against the sickening realisation. Melanie’s enthusiastic fearlessness may make this office and program better for him as an aro, but how can it answer all the attitudes that made Rowan fear coming out in the first place?

If he’s a coward, doesn’t he have reason?

“We do need a meeting,” he says slowly, his heart pounding in his chest like blast beats in death metal. “On better integrating marginalised people into our office. Because the way you emphasise my pronouns, Melanie, or the way Shelby reassures me five times that I can correct her … that doesn’t make me feel safe. It makes me feel reminded. Different. Too visible. And that’s why...”

“You ended up standing on a desk?” Damien asks with the gruffness of a middle-aged cis man trying to sound gentle.

“Yeah,” Rowan mutters. “That.”

Melanie clasps her fingers to her lips. “Oh! I didn’t mean anything by it! I just wanted people to get it right!”

How many times has he suffered through well-meaning people explaining that in response to his saying that they made him uncomfortable? How many times has he heard people justify their actions as though good intent always mitigates bad impact?

“You’re … you’re still making this about you! The only answer I want or need from you is thanks for telling me, Rowan, I won’t do it again! That’s all! Not your reasoning, not this effort to justify! I want to know that you hear me, that you’ll acknowledge that your intent however good still made me come home crying from dysphoria, and that you’ll stop because I don’t want to put up with it anymore! That’s all!”

For the second time in less than a fortnight, a chilling silence envelops the office.

“We need a meeting,” Rowan says breathlessly, reminding himself that at least this time he isn’t standing on his desk, “discussing how to include marginalised people in our office. Discussing all the microaggressions. Maybe you need to find … educators, trainers who come in and do this. I don’t know. I’m just so tired of never feeling safe or normal, never feeling like I can say anything because this isn’t hate and at least you’re not my parents! Like I don’t ever get to have anything better!”

He stands up, unsure what to do past fetching himself a distracting cup of coffee.

Maybe, then, he’ll be able to survive the way Melanie looks at him—as though he just ran over her puppy.

She just came out, and he did run right over it.

“I’m sorry.” Rowan sags onto his chair, leaning forwards to grab his satchel despite the unpleasant giddiness. “I’m sorry. It’s wonderful, Melanie, that you now know who you are and that you can come out. And it’s amazing that you’re doing things already, when I needed like six months just to get used to my knowing I’m aro. I just...” He reaches inside the satchel and pulls out a rough oblong shape wrapped in white tissue paper. “Here. I’m sorry.”

He, an allo-aro man, screwed up an aro-ace woman’s coming out. Shouldn’t he know better? He wants to laugh, wants to cry, wants to curl up in a ball and hide under his desk. Even now, when he’s trying to get what he needs as a trans man, he’s being the worst kind of aromantic!

Her lips pinched, Melanie takes the present in her hands, worrying at the top piece of tape with her long, pink nails.

“We’ll have a meeting.” Damien runs his hand through his hair as though he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “I’ll talk to the heads about … sensitivity training, I suppose this also is. Would you be willing to write me an email outlining some of these behaviours and any ways we can make this office safer for you? Is that an appropriate thing to ask of you?”

“I don’t mind,” Rowan says. As long as he doesn’t go ignored, he’ll send a few emails—and he already has a few blog posts on which to draw. “Thank you.”

“Do you … want anything, now? To talk privately to me or anyone else? Or to a senior supervisor? Or someone with the government body? Can I do or arrange anything else?”

“Coffee. Please. And … and then to go back to fixing photos as though absolutely nothing happened because I don’t … do this sort of thing.” Rowan heaves a shaking sigh, pushing aside the thought that nobody can have failed to observe this. “Thank—thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

He notices Damien gesturing at Melanie, notices that Rowan’s aro flag mug leaves with both and returns a few minutes later—now distracting from the office’s musty odour with its rich bitterness. He takes a few sips, but only by throwing himself into his work can he survive the gibbering, chattering thoughts building into a crushing tsunami of what the hell. Why did he do that? Why—no. Photos.

The soft clunk of crockery hitting laminate makes him look up.

Melanie leans against the edge of Rowan’s desk, her hand resting atop her new orange, yellow, white and blue aro-ace flag mug. “I’m sorry. Thanks for telling me.” She draws a deep breath, tapping her nails against the rim. “I didn’t know I could … that there’s an explanation, until I read your booklet. It described me. Things I didn’t realise about me! Things I’d been feeling! But … I’ve been learning about things like micro-aggressions. I didn’t know I’d been doing them myself. I’m sorry. I’ll keep learning. And thank you for my cup.”

“I know,” Rowan says softly, thinking back to the day when he realised the words “aromantic” and “frayromantic” describe him. A belated voicing of confusion and alienation; the naming of a constant sense of difference from the world. Revelation, understanding, explanation. “I know. I’m sorry, too. I don’t like … scenes. Or asking people things. I’m an anxious coward. So it just...”

He waves his hands, trying to mime an explosion.

Melanie, wide-eyed, jerks her head. “I couldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t done it first—and I wouldn’t have known to say anything if you hadn’t! And you’re asking us to do things knowing that we don’t understand, which must be frightening at least. You’re brave. And you shouldn’t be sorry.”

Rowan stares at her, unsure what to say in response. Never has anyone in his life freely offered such a sentiment. Never has anyone offered him something so generous without subsequent critique of Rowan’s intolerance for and impatience with their struggles to deal with him, praise softening the following reproval.

Brave.

His throat tightens and his eyes blur.

“Would you work with me on a proposal to put together for the submission forms? Damien insisted that I work with you, if you want to.”

“Uh … yeah?”

Melanie grabs a stack of papers from her desk and a chair. “I’ve gone through the old forms and highlighted passages. Do you want to read through and see if there’s anything I’ve missed or anything that should be left?”

He nods and takes the papers. Is this an alternate universe, the world flung upside down? Or, if people possess a minimum of decency, can he make needed change by addressing his problems instead of letting everyone talk over him? Can he build a world where he doesn’t endure cis or allo microaggressions by believing that their inconveniences aren’t worth more than his discomfort?

If his co-workers doesn’t object to correction, if they’re willing to make changes and investigate training, is the problem one of Rowan’s overreaction?

Does that mean he can talk to Matt the way he spoke to Melanie and Damien?

“Is something wrong?” Melanie asks, frowning.

Rowan shakes his head and plucks a pen from his frayro mug. “No.”

For the first time in a long time, that’s mostly true.

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unicornery · 5 years ago

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For my own amusement, I started tracking how the songs from the Billboard Hot 100 from this week in 1974 have been used in movie soundtracks. Feature Films only people! As you read, you will see the “gimmes” that made me think of the idea, but I’m putting this behind a cut because there ended up being so many which had a soundtrack match. As a reminder, you can follow along as I do the Hot 100 each week corresponding to which classic AT40 and VJ Big 40 get played on SiriusXM ‘70s on 7 and ‘80s on 8 respectively with my ever-changing Spotify playlist.

100. “Beyond the Blue Horizon” - Lou Christie. This one is a cheat because when I looked it up on Spotify it showed up on the Rain Man soundtrack. The only song I could have told you off the top of my head was in Rain Main is the Belle Stars’ version of “Iko Iko.” Rain Man marked the first soundtrack appearance for Christie’s version.

98. “The Air That I Breathe” - The Hollies. Very memorable appearance in The Virgin Suicides, which had the score done by, wait for it, French electronica duo Air. The song would go on to be heard in other movies.

90. “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” - Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. The Paper Lace version appears in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Both acts topped the charts with the song on opposite sides of the pond: Paper Lace in the UK and Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods in the US. [Update: the BD&H version may be in "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday"]

87. “Hollywood Swinging” - Kool & the Gang. This oft-sampled track first appeared in a feature film in the 2005 Get Shorty sequel Be Cool.

84. “La Grange” - ZZ Top. Armageddon first, followed by others.

68. “Band on the Run” - Paul McCartney and Wings. I didn’t search for this at first because I didn’t think there would be anything, but then Jet was on the chart at #27, so I did a twofer search on imdb. Jet has not been in any films (save “One Hand Clapping, a rockumentary on Paul, which I don’t count for purposes of this discussion) but “Band on the Run” appears in The Killing Fields, in a shocking scene that contrasts the light tone of the pop song with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge’s executions of Cambodian citizens.

66. “For the Love of Money” - The O’Jays. Has been used many times, according to IMDb the first feature film use was the Richard Pryor roman a clef (if I’m using that right, I only know it from Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man) Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.

59. “Rock Around the Clock” - Bill Haley and his Comets. Notably used in Blackboard Jungle, the song is on this 1974 chart for its appearance in American Graffiti.

55. “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” - Rick Derringer. First one that comes to mind is Dazed and Confused bc I had that soundtrack, but it has been in others.

49. “Love’s Theme” - the Love Unlimited Orchestra. The swirling strings of this song indicate that someone is indeed falling in love. That’s my way of saying, if you think you haven’t heard this, you have. Imdb has it in Mean Girls, among others.

47. “The Way We Were” - Barbra Streisand. The titular song of the 1973 film The Way We Were, starring Barbra and Robert Redford. A little long, but worth a watch bc Barbra is amazing in it. At the 1974 Academy Awards, Marvin Hamslich won Best Original Song honors for this tune, and was awarded Best Original Dramatic Score for his other musical work on the film. I always think of Lisa Loopner’s big crush on him.

44. “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” - Stevie Wonder. First feature film usage was the 1998 Eddie Murphy flop Holy Man, which surprised me as it’s such a good song, you’d think it would have been in something earlier. Notable given Eddie’s impression of Stevie Wonder he performed on SNL!

42. “Rock On” - David Essex. Michael Damian’s cover (or remix as described by Patton Oswalt) was recorded for the 1989 2 Coreys classic Dream a Little Dream, and per imdb, David Essex’s original appears in the alternate-history comedy Dick, from 1999.

37. “Oh Very Young” - Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam. Surprisingly, this sweet song appears in the gross-out bowling comedy Kingpin.

36. “Jungle Boogie” - Kool & the Gang. This song may have been used in the most films and tv shows of any I’ve researched so far, but its first appearance was in Pulp Fiction.

34. “The Payback - Part 1” - James Brown. First feature film appearance was in 1995′s Dead Presidents. A different James Brown track appears on the soundtrack for racist-ass Melly Gibson’s Payback from 1999.

33. “Help Me” - Joni Mitchell. Another why’d-it-take-ya-so-long shocker, this mellow tune first appeared in the 2018 sci-fi movie Kin, narrowly beating Welcome to Marwen from 2019.

31. “The Entertainer” - Marvin Hamlisch. The title theme from the Redford/Newman team-up The Sting. Hamlisch won a record-tying third Academy Award in 1974 for Best Original Score for The Sting. It seems at this time Best Original Score and Best Original Dramatic Score were separate categories. Hamlisch would win Grammys for both this and “The Way We Were,” eventually becoming an EGOT winner in 1995.

30. “Eres Tú” - Mocedades. This Spanish Eurovision entry notably appears in the buddy comedy Tommy Boy when Chris Farley and David Spade’s characters sing along with the radio.

28. “Midnight at the Oasis” - Maria Muldaur. Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard perform their own rendition in the Christopher Guest film Waiting for Guffman. That should be all you need, but imdb has the first film appearance for the song as 1995′s Falcon and the Snowman.

24. “Let it Ride” - Bachman-Turner Overdrive. This lesser-known but not less great BTO jam has appeared in a handful of films, the first being Ash Wednesday, starring Elijah Wood and directed by Edward Burns and not Garry Marshall. Note: it does not seem to be in the Richard Dreyfuss gambling movie Let It Ride, a classic VHS cover of my youth.

18. “Mockingbird” - James Taylor and Carly Simon. Memorably performed by Harry and Lloyd in the dog van in Dumb and Dumber, later joined by a Latinx family on guitar and vocals. Before that, Beverly D’Angelo and Chevy Chase’s characters also sang it on their road trip in National Lampoon’s Vacation. I couldn’t find an instance where James and Carly’s version played in a movie but I am sayin’ there’s a chance. That it could be someday.

16. “Tubular Bells” - Mike Oldfield. This instrumental is best known for being the theme to The Exorcist, but I was surprised to learn from the Wiki entry that it was not written for the film. Tubular Bells or something that’s meant to sound like it has been in a ton of other things, generally uncredited. Of note: Mike Oldfield would go on to do the score for The Killing Fields.

14. “Seasons in the Sun” - Terry Jacks. Now here is the type of song that ‘70s haters point to as an example of the whiny wuss rock that they feel over-dominated the era. It’s not one of my favorites but I appreciate it for how weird it is. I suppose being translated into English from a French/Belgian poem will do that to ya. Before I did my search, I imagined I would find it in a Farrelly Brothers movie or two, possibly the Anchorman sequel. However, the only feature film match I found was the 2002 indie flick Cherish, a movie I have never seen despite being confronted by the cover many times at rental places over the years. Before today, when I watched the trailer, I would have told you it starred Jennifer Love Hewitt and was about “a band trying to make it.” It turns out I am thinking of the 1999 film The Suburbans. Anyway Cherish seems aggressively indie and very of-its-time in a way that makes me want to watch it.

13. “Dancing Machine” - The Jackson 5. The song appears in the Blaxploitation spoof I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, as well as the movie of Starsky & Hutch.

11. “Lookin’ For A Love” - Bobby Womack. This was in the movie of The Ladies Man starring Tim Meadows as his SNL character Leon Phelps. I almost skipped this one but I’m glad I didn’t because Tim Meadows rules.

8. “The Loco-Motion” - Grand Funk Railroad (the single and album it was on are credited to Grand Funk). We have our second song from the Kirsten Dunst/Michelle Williams movie Dick. Since that was satirizing Nixon and Watergate, well done to the filmmakers for including these 1974 hits! It appeared in one earlier film, My Girl 2.

5. “Come and Get Your Love” - Redbone. Known to modern listeners for appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy. [Sidebar: if you can find a way to listen to the With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus episode T.G.I.G.O.T.G.OST (Thank God It’s the Guardians of the Galaxy Original Soundtrack) with Sean Clements and Hayes Davenport, do it!] The song first appeared in Dance Me Outside, a Canadian film about First Nations youth, which is a cool parallel with Redbone being composed of Native American musicians. “Come and Get Your Love” is also in Dick!

4. “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” - Gladys Knight & the Pips. Another SNL feature pops up on our list, 1994′s It’s Pat: The Movie.

3. “Hooked on a Feeling” - Blue Swede. ALSO known to modern listeners as being from the GOTG, but possibly only in the trailer? I’m fuzzy. The song ALSO also appears in Dick, and its first feature film appearance was Reservoir Dogs.

2. “Bennie and the Jets” - Elton John. You know it, you love it, you cackle at the gag in Mystery Team. IMDb has this song down as first appearing in the low budget feature Aloha, Bobby and Rose, from 1975. It is ALSO in My Girl 2, with proper credit for Sir Elton.

1. “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” - MFSB featuring The Three Degrees. IMDb says this appeared in the Al Pacino film Carlito’s Way, and I have no reason to doubt them because it means we are done! Thanks for readin’ and rockin’ along.

#AT40 #1970s music #movie soundtrack #Billboard hot 100

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thelazyeye · 5 years ago

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Author Appreciation Day!!

Fanfiction is a truly wonderful experience. I am so lucky to not only be involved in writing, but to get the explicit experience of being able to read what authors share with the world. Every story comes from somewhere inside of an author. Even when they’re silly or fun or seemingly ridiculous, an author has taken the time to write it from inside of themselves. We should ALWAYS appreciate them. Today is just something special to really be loud about it. These are some of my all time favorite fics and authors. Please, read and enjoy.

(I’m not going to hunt down people’s tumblrs if they’re not listed in the fics so if you know who’s blog wrote any of these and they’re not tagged, please feel free to let me know and I will 100% kindly tag them!)

In The Wrong Place, Trying To Make It Right by pininawig (this is the very first Reddie fic I ever read. It got me into the fandom. I have a deep appreciation for it and I reread it all the time. Please go love this story).

"Richie wasn’t sure how the fuck he’d managed to forget Eddie Kaspbrak. Like, now that he’s got Eddie’s hand in his (his remaining hand, Richie’s traitorous mind reminds him cruelly, and he avoids looking at the hospital gown lying flat against the bed where an arm should be) he remembers everything." Or, 27 years later, Eddie makes it out of the sewers alive.

Tear It With Your Teeth by Belby

"We could leave this place, Eddie," Richie says. "God, imagine that? Not having to live in this trash dump anymore. We could go wherever we wanted. A different place every night."

Give The Past A Slip by brodayhey

On his way to a live show for his popular podcast, Richie stumbles into a person from his past. He remembers.

Remember (It Kills Me To See You Without Me) by Kandakicksass

Richie Tozier falls in love with Eddie Kaspbrak, forgets him, and finds him again, over the course of twenty-seven years.

The Purge by leighwrites / @aizeninlefox

In 2014, following an economic collapse and rising social unrest, a political organisation named NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) formed and overthrew the Government, becoming voted into office. In 2016 the NFFA devised a plan to help stabilise the American society and then in 2017 the 28th Amendment was added. The amendment established a twelve hour event called the purge which would start at seven in the evening of March 21st to seven in the morning of March 22nd where all crime was made legal and emergency services were unreachable.

Stay For The Storm by inoubliable / @hanscom

Richie and Eddie had become friends almost on sight. Since they met, most of Eddie's time in Los Angeles has involved Richie in some way. It's a little different, now that they're both famous. It's a little different, now that they're sleeping together. Well, to be fair, they've been sleeping together for a long time, but. No one knows, not even their friends. Eddie has been very careful about that. It's just not the sort of publicity he needs. So when Beverly calls him that sunny Thursday morning, the last thing he expects her to say is, "You're fucking Richie?"

5555 by weepies / @finnwolfhard

“I am not harmless,” Eddie had said, his eyes thundering—a challenge. “I could ruin your life.”

“I dare you,” Richie had replied, a smug smile on his face.

This is where I leave you (sitting in a palace, covered in gold inside my head) by Enj0ltaiRe

Going blind wasn’t something that Richie had ever even took into consideration. He had joked about it, thinking that having to wear glasses was close enough to being blind, complaining about the fact that there were people that could see for free, while he had to pay for contacts and specs, but he had never actually thought about the possibility of losing his eyesight.

Blackbird by michelllejones

“Ho-ly fuck,” Richie whispers, and Eddie has never been so fucking scared. Not when he saw the leper, not when he confronted his mother about his pills, not when they fought It in the sewers. Never. Eddie screws his eyes shut and clutches at the material of his jeans. Please be too high to notice, please be too high to notice, please be too high to notice “Eddie?”

Scene Stealer by mseg_21 / @jem-carstairs-is-perfection

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.” Eddie muttered under his breath, staring wide eyed as the man sat up. “You’re a serial killer, aren’t you? You- you lured me in, with the blood and the- the screams and now you’re going to kill me-” The man just kept on laughing, convincing Eddie more and more that he was a psychopath and that Eddie’s good heart was about to get him murdered. “I’m not going to kill you.” The man said, still laughing. “Hurt me? Kidnap me?” Eddie asked. The man shook his head in response to Eddie’s questions. “No?” The man chuckled. “Definitely not. Why would I want to hurt the cute nurse that came to my rescue?”

Richie and Eddie Were Here by andthewasp

Eddie Kaspbrak is leaving for college tomorrow. He's leaving his best friend, Richie, and the park where they grew up, behind; but he has things to do first. Eddie and Richie embark on one final adventure in an attempt to pick up the pieces they've left strewn throughout their little hometown before they part ways, and end up finding even more.

Grow Through The Dirt by tinyarmedtrex / @tinyarmedtrex

Mike owns a small flower shop next to a tattoo parlor. He's never been interested in tattoos, but he may be interested in one of the owners, Stan.

I Will Make You Hurt by theonlytraveler / @tozierking

Eddie has struggled with school the past couple years, and his last year of high school is already off to a bad start. His mom hires him a tutor from the nearby University and things seem like they might start looking up. But when Eddie's tutor takes an interest in him, everything starts to fall apart, and Eddie is forced into a situation he never even imagined.

A Memory Of Love by stellarbisexual / @stellarbisexual

Richie and Eddie, who haven't seen each other since they were kids, get cast as the lead couple in an indie film.

Into The Dark by nb_richie (shipit)

Richie and Stan have seen and dealt with a lot of cases in the years they’ve been working together, from cults to cartels. A case in Derry, Maine, proves to be one of the most horrific for them and for the two local officers they’ll be working with. And on top of it all, Richie keeps remembering things he’d rather forget.

Hit Me Baby One More Time by richttps @richardtoz

As a child, Eddie always dreamt of becoming a doctor but things don’t always go as planned - especially when you’re still sleeping with a stuffed animal. At twenty-four, he still deals with his fair share of people passing out and crying underneath a needle, but not medically. Instead, he spent his years in college exploring the world of art and went on to work as a tattoo artist in his own shop. In a way, the two are very similar, at least that’s what he tells himself when a newly legal teenager tells him that they’re so grateful that he’d tattooed the word ‘bitch’ on the inside of their lip. His last appointment for the night is especially different.

A Playlist For The End Of The World by gyngersnap / @redactedrichie

It's been a year since the zombie outbreak started, and Eddie and Richie are all that's left of the Loser's club. Eddie's not sure if he can handle it anymore, but Richie's convinced almost anything can be fixed with a little music, an abandoned mall, and a whole lot of terrible dance moves.

Scorpion Grasses by PimpedOutGreenEars

“Tell everyone… Tell everyone I’ll miss them. And Eds, tell him… Just promise to call him Eds for me every once in a while. So he won’t forget me.”

On his last night in Derry Richie shares a bottle of red wine with Beverly. He makes promises to send letters he knows he won't remember to write, cries a lot, and then ends it with the boy he loves who's just dumb enough to love him back.

Love Your Body Right by richietoaster / @richietoaster

Eddie's arm is broken and he enlists the help of his best friend to get off. Richie has a better idea.

A Long Way Back To The Light by slytherincosette / @tozierhargreeves

For Eddie, senior year is supposed to be an under-the-radar kind of year. He's been avoiding all of his friends for months and his mental health has been steadily declining. Why rock the boat and make everything worse? His plans consist of getting into the local community college (easy) and avoiding Richie, the worst sort-of-ex-boyfriend ever (considerably harder.) Then Bill drags him to a stupid party, and Eddie's plans are thrown through a loop. Suddenly, "under-the-radar" seems like a cop-out. Eddie decides, once and for all, to stop settling for decent, for alright, for enough. Eddie's going to take his life back if it fucking kills him.

Baby, I’m Counting On You by PuddingTown / @tozierpunks

Alternately titled: My babysitter's a rockstar. When Richie Tozier breezes back into his hometown of Derry, Maine, he’s expecting to see familiar faces. Of course, he’s not expecting to see an old flame chasing around a baby. With a million questions, nowhere to go, and a help wanted ad for a nannying job, he finds himself at the doorstep of Eddie Kaspbrak.

My Eyes Only by chucknovak / @wonderwheelzier

Eddie accidentally finds Richie's nudes because Richie doesn't understand Snapchat.

Meet Me In The Graveyard by Oldguybones / @oldguybones

After almost five years apart, the Losers club reunites to spend the weekend together at Mike’s lakeside cabin. Armed with booze and total solitude, the gang plans to make up for lost time and catch up with those who were once the most important people of their youths. Tensions fly as lost love is rekindled and friendships are divided. But they soon begin to realize that they are not alone. Someone or something is out for blood and will not rest until they get it. What will the Losers do?

Richie The Ruiner by RanjantheVictor

It takes Richie Tozier a while to realize, but eventually he does. Richie ruins everything, no matter how much he tries not to.

This is BY FAR not a comprehensive list, nor are they ranked in order. I love a lot of pieces and a lot of authors and if I were to combine them all into one post you’d never see your dash board again. This is, however, some of my all time favorites. Some of these fics hold very special places in my heart. Some of these fics shaped me into the writer I am today. Some of these fics are the reason I am here and writing. I love them dearly. I love these authors. Go love them, please. Lord knows they ALL deserve it.

#Em posts #reddie #richie #eddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #fic rec #Stan Uris #Mike Hanlon #Stanlon #Stan #Mike

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baphomet-media · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

Another year has gone by just like that, and here we are with another year’s worth of games played! There were some good releases this year, and I’m excited to talk about them all. Before that, though, let’s touch briefly on the criteria for these lists:

Any game that I played for the first time in 2019 is eligible, regardless of initial release year. Games that I started late in the previous year but spent most of the time playing in the year in question also count.

Ports, remasters, remakes, etc. of games that I have played before do not count.

I have to spend a certain amount of time with a game or the game has to make some kind of significant impact on me to be considered.

Lastly, these are just my opinion out of a very limited pool of games that I was personally able to get to this year, so if a game you played this year doesn’t show up, chances are either I didn’t have a chance to play it, or it just wasn’t personally as impactful to me as some of the others on the list. Now, on to the list!

10. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

Developer: Intelligent Systems / Koei Tecmo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Strategy RPG

Release Date: July 26th 2019

Before Three Houses, the only Fire Emblem game I played was Awakening on the 3DS. I mostly enjoyed it, but I couldn’t get into the marriage aspect of the game, and I felt that many of the battles a bit too lacking in any sort of story context other than “There are bad guys here, let’s take them out!”

However, Three Houses really succeeded for me where Awakening failed. The academy was a really great home base and actually gave some meaningful context to most of the battles in the game. I really enjoyed micromanaging the different lessons in the game and tweaking each of my students into exactly the build I wanted for them, however I felt the drawback of this was that there weren’t really a whole lot of different classes to really explore. Most of the game’s character classes are just stronger variations of lower-level classes, and it definitely felt like some skill categories became woefully underutilized as the game went on, so there was no point in training people for them. I also liked recruiting other students to my house, but I felt like the other houses students didn’t really offer anything that my current house already had, so some students ended up feeling mechanically similar to others.

The battles were exactly what you’d expect from Fire Emblem, and gave me a bit of a tabletop RPG vibe, which I enjoyed, particularly when there were large monsters to fight that took up more grid space than standard units.

That being said, the story was really interesting, and I really liked watching everything unfold. I picked the Black Eagles house (because Edelgard is great), but I felt like that story didn’t really do a great job of explaining everything, and expected you to just side with Edelgard on some of her more bold decisions with no explanation as to why what she was doing was right, which felt kind of unfair. The game really wanted you to go through and play each one of the houses stories, but with around 80 hours poured into a single house, I didn’t really feel like there was much point at the end.

Overall, I think Three Houses is a great fit for the Switch and I’m excited to see what the future of Fire Emblem on Switch will look like.

9. Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch)

Developer: Next Level Games

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Adventure

Release Date: October 31st 2019

When it comes to Luigi’s Mansion, I enjoyed Dark Moon on 3DS back in 2013 while waiting for Animal Crossing: New Leaf to drop, but I never really had much of a reason to come back to it. Still, I really enjoyed the exploration aspect of the game and the attention to detail really impressed me with how nearly everything could be interacted with.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 on Switch is more of what you’d expect from the Luigi’s Mansion series. The game centers around Luigi exploring a haunted hotel to stop King Boo and rescue Mario and his friends. While Dark Moon focused more on a few isolated mansions with different themes, LM3 brings things back to a single gigantic building. This time, each floor of the mansion has a different spooky theme, from ancient Egypt, to classical music, to a floor overgrown with plants. Luigi has to defeat the boss of each floor to reclaim the elevator button for the next floor as he gradually works his way to the top.

Like with previous games in the series, you can expect loads of environmental interaction, such as all the items you can suck up and mess with using the Poltergust, but LM3 brings some new mechanics to the series, including a launchable plunger than you can then pull on to yank certain objects around, as well as the remote-control Gooigi, who is as fun to use as his name is cursed. Gooigi is basically a slime doppelganger for Luigi who can be deployed at any point to assist Luigi with different tasks, or split up for local co-op play. He also has the ability to squeeze through grates and pipes, allowing all sorts of hidden areas that only Gooigi can explore.

LM3 is a game that oozes with charm (no pun intended), though the combat does get a tad repetitive. Also, I was a bit disappointed that there was not more interplay between different floors of the hotel. They’re almost exclusively completely isolated levels, which definitely takes away from the feeling of having a huge building to explore.

8. Blasphemous (PC)

Developer: The Game Kitchen

Publisher: Team17

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: September 10th 2019

Blasphemous is a game I remember seeing teasers for earlier in 2019, but saw little to no hype for otherwise. However, the concept and the stunning hi-bit pixel art immediately drew me in. The game is a 2D adventure platformer set in a gothic fantasy world reminiscent of Dark Souls. In fact, quite a lot of this game is reminiscent of Dark Souls, with a lore thicker than gravy that’s brimming with little tidbits of information in every NPC dialogue, every item flavor text, and in the bosses you encounter. The world takes inspiration from Christianity, though not actually being about Christianity itself, instead a fictional religion with many similar aspects (an approach I wish more developers would take).

In Blasphemous, you play as The Penitent One as you explore a rotting gothic world and learn more about a strange quasi-religious curse called The Miracle and other fascinating bits of the world. You explore such locations as rotting cathedrals, a frozen mountain, the interior of a colossal bell set upside down into the ground, and more. Along the way, your eyes will feast on some of the most gorgeous pixel art in games this year.

The Penitent One is able to battle with their sword and certain special abilities picked up along the way. While the combat is fairly simple at first, it gets much more deep and nuanced as you go along, dodging enemy attacks, parrying and countering, using spells to buff yourself or shoot projectiles, and much more. Personally, the game feels a lot like Dark Souls meets Castlevania, particularly Symphony of the Night. It’s definitely a lot of fun, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea due to tone and difficulty.

7. Mario Maker 2 (Switch)

Developer: Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Action Platformer and Level Editor

Release Date: June 28th 2019

I was a big fan of the idea of the original Mario Maker on WiiU, so I was really excited when Mario Maker 2 was announced for Switch with a plethora of new parts, themes, mechanics, and features. I have a pretty big soft spot for classic Mario games, and level editors really get my gamedev side going, so this game pretty much checked all the boxes for me.

I was glad this time around to see an extensive singleplayer mode, where Mario has to play through Nintendo’s own pre-made levels to gain coins to rebuild Peach’s castle after the Undodog resets it all to nothing. It was a great introduction to the game, particularly showcasing what all you can do with the new parts. It was the perfect thing to get any creator’s brain tingling with ideas for their first level.

The editor itself is largely improved from the WiiU, though you’ll almost certainly need a capacitive stylus in order to really take advantage of the Switch’s touch screen, though it’s nice to finally have a Switch game with proper touch screen support, since it seemed like Nintendo had all but forgotten about this part of the device. There are tons of new improvements here, too, such as all modifiers for objects can be accessed by long-pressing on an object. One thing I wasn’t fond of though was the way the Select and Copy modes are accessed, needing to toggle through them and normal edit mode instead of just having a single button for each.

Unfortunately, the Amiibo costumes have not returned, which would have been a great use for Amiibo on Switch (anyone remember that the Switch is Amiibo compatible?), though with the recent release of the Link costume, it seems that Nintendo has plans in mind for these alternate forms.

Fortunately, if you’re not much of a creator, there’s still plenty to do in MM2, as there are tons of ways to play levels online, including an endless challenge mode with different difficulties, browsing top level lists, and a new speedrun mode where levels are available for a limited time and you can grind them to get your best time, playing against the ghosts of other players’ best times.

All in all, I’ve had fun with MM2, and I’m excited to see what Nintendo will bring to the game in future updates (please implement level playlists).

6. Baba Is You (PC)

Developer: Hempuli

Publisher: Hempuli

Genre: Puzzle

Release Date: March 13th 2019

Out of nowhere back in March came a little indie game known as Baba Is You. In this programming puzzle game, each level contains the rules of the level as physical objects that you can push around and recombine to manipulate how the game plays. Each rule statement can (usually) be broken down into three components: an object (such as Water), a verb (such as Is) and a property (such as Stop). Each one of these components can be pushed around at will, and if you line all three of them up you get the statement “Water Is Stop”, meaning that all water tiles in the level do not allow other objects to move over them. If you break this statement, the water loses this blocking property and you can walk over it. It doesn’t stop there, though, and there are tons of combinations and complicated scenarios that will leave your brain hurting after too long. While some of the puzzles are unfortunately rather obtuse in their intended solutions, and the game doesn’t always do a great job of teaching you the skills you’ll need to face harder puzzles, you at least have the option of completing multiple different levels, so it’s rare that you’ll be stuck on just one.

It also helps that the art for the game is a cute but simplistic hand-drawn style that makes it easy to distinguish all the various elements of each level. The only reason this game didn’t rank higher on my list is that I got stuck and I found most of the levels to be a bit too hard for me (shocking, I know).

5. Gato Roboto (PC)

Developer: doinksoft

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: May 30th 2019

Gato Roboto is a cute Metroid-like adventure platformer that sees you taking the role of Kiki, a cat who has to explore an alien planet to rescue her master’s crashed ship. Fortunately, while Kiki is defenseless on her own, she is able to pilot a robotic mech suit to run, gun, and jump across different zones of the planet. While a Metroid-esque platformer is nothing new, it’s the charming 1bit graphics and the interesting interplay between power suit mechanics and suitless cat mechanics. Sometimes there are gaps that the suit can’t fit into or walls that you need cat claws to climb, so you’ll have to abandon your robot suit and proceed on foot for a bit. In true Metroid fashion, you’ll acquire many upgrades for your suit as you go along, including movement abilities and health upgrades.

The game is short, but very sweet, and the mechanics are super satisfying. You could maybe finish the game in a few hours, but the controls and speedrun potential will likely keep you coming back for more.

The only downside I have to the game is that there is at least one section where you have to explore extensively on foot, and since you die in a single hit while on foot, it makes for some frustrating moments when you just barely mistime a jump and graze an enemy. Also, at one point I managed to softlock the game by accidentally bypassing a barrier that the player isn’t meant to and getting stuck in a boss area when a required button doesn’t work after you defeat the boss. Fortunately, the developers managed to patch this, so I was able to continue playing after a while.

4. Hollow Knight (PC/Switch)

Developer: Team Cherry

Publisher: Team Cherry

Genre: Adventure Platformer

Release Date: February 24th 2017

I’ll admit, I was a bit late to the party on this one. Hollow Knight released back in 2017 on PC, and while I played it for a bit on there, I didn’t get far and just never had time to come back to it. However, when it was released on Switch in mid 2018, I ended up picking it up again some time later and gradually worked my way through it into 2019. Hollow Knight is a Metroid-esque adventure platformer with light Dark Souls elements set in a dark and dismal world of a fallen insect kingdom. You play as a lone knight who seeks to explore the Hallownest and learn its secrets. Armed only with your Nail, a rusted sword, you explore the caverns and abandoned civilization beneath the town of Dirtmouth.

The game has tons of exploration, and allows the player to explore Hallownest at their own pace with minimal signposting towards destinations. Additionally, the game has an interesting map mechanic where you start off completely without a map and have to rely on memory to navigate the tunnels, however very quickly you’ll be able to purchase a blank map where you can record rooms you’ve been to at each save point. However this map only works for the current area, so for each area you discover, you’ll have to start this process all over, finding a map so you can chart out the area. While this sounds like a pain at first (and definitely can take some adjusting), it’s actually really interesting as you feel like you’re really discovering a forgotten realm and charting out your own personal course through the world. There are also plenty of points for nonlinear progression, as many areas are often open to the player at once, so it’s up to them to choose where to go (or just stumble across new areas at random like me). Each area offers vastly different visuals, from a mushroom-filled series of tunnels, to an elegant garden, to dank sewers, to a city drenched with perpetual underground rain. In each area you’ll explore every nook and cranny to find upgrades and new abilities.

Along the way, you’ll find many badges that you can equip, a la Paper Mario, that give you various passive bonuses and abilities, however you are limited in the number you can have equipped at a time, so strategic planning of which badges to use is crucial.

One of the game’s main features is challenging boss battles. The further you get in the game, the more the balance shifts from exploration to combat, with the late game mostly revolving around hunting down multiple different bosses. Many bosses are optional, however, and some are even hidden, so many players might miss them entirely. Personally, while I found many bosses to be fun challenges, it got kind of tedious to constantly be fighting bosses at every turn, which led to me not completely finishing the game.

3. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (Switch)

Developer: Square Enix

Publisher: Square Enix

Genre: RPG

Release Date: September 27th 2019

I’ll admit I slept on Dragon Quest XI when it released for PC and PS4 back in 2017. It was constantly on my “maybe someday” list, but it wasn’t until the Definitive Edition released on Switch back in September that I decided to give it a go, and boy am I glad I did.

DQXI tells the story of a young man who finds out one day that he is the reincarnation of a legendary hero called The Luminary, who is said to defeat an evil known as The Dark One and bring peace to the world. However, he soon finds himself hunted by a corrupt kingdom that has branded him as The Darkspawn, claiming he is responsible for bringing The Dark One to the world and causing disaster. Thus, our hero travels the world, meeting friends along the way, and finding out what it means to be The Luminary.

The game’s plot may seem a bit generic, but that’s the thing. The whole conceit of DQXI is that it’s a classic JRPG at heart, but with a lot of modern touches to make it feel accessible today. So while there are plenty of turn-based battles, MP gauges, and a story that’s simplistic at the surface, there are loads of surprises throughout and lots of mechanical tweaks that drastically improve the quality of life of the game. For instance, as characters level up, they gain skill points that they can spend on a grid of skills to improve their abilities in different disciplines. Usually, each character has a sector of the grid for each weapon type they can use, as well as one section full of character-specific buffs and special abilities. By the end of the game, you’ll be able to unlock nearly every ability, so it becomes more of a matter of deciding which abilities to prioritize based on how you want to customize each character.

Speaking of characters, there’s a pretty full cast of characters to enjoy, and I found myself loving all of them, such as the spunky Veronica, the flamboyant Sylvando, or the warrior princess Jade. Each character has their own battle style, too, including casting spells, using strong weapons, buffing the party, and more.

The game will easily get you over 100 hours of playtime, with myself clocking in at around 120 hours so far. I’m not quite done yet, but I’m almost there. See, there’s a ton to do in DQXI aside from the main story, including crafting and improving items in a quick minigame at your Fun-Size Forge, gambling in the casino, horse racing, side questing, and exploring various parts of the world.

As for quality of life features, there are such things as the Horse Hailer, which allows you to immediately summon a horse on the overworld for quick travel, early access to the Zoom spell, which lets you teleport back to any town, important location, or campsite you’ve visited throughout the world for free, campsites being free healing, a speed-up option in combat, multiple auto-battle options, the ability to quick-heal in the menu, and more. It’s hard to really list everything, but there are tons of instances where you’ll think “Oh, that’s really handy”.

The visuals of the game are fantastic, with lots of that Akira Toriyama style that’s become synonymous with the Dragon Quest series. The characters are all really well designed and memorable, though some of the NPCs have a bit of a case of same-face, which is especially jarring considering that the game’s world is inspired by many diverse real-world cultures, making it odd that people from a Japanese-inspired area look exactly the same as people from an area based on northeast Europe. Still, I think the game otherwise does an excellent job at respecting world cultures, and even incorporates real-world languages into different regions. For example, the in-game city of Gondolia is based heavily on Venice, Italy, and the people of that city sprinkle bits of Italian into their dialogue. It’s a charming touch.

The music for the game sounds really great if you enable the orchestral version. Unfortunately, the game originally released with only a synthesized version of the soundtrack, which sounds terrible by comparison. Unfortunately, I felt that although each of the compositions were very memorable and pleasing, there sometimes didn’t feel like enough of them. The overworld, city, battle, boss battle, and dungeon themes are exactly the same wherever you go in the world, and I felt like that was a missed opportunity to really spice up the soundtrack with more unique themes to each area.

Overall, If you like JRPG’s, you’ll definitely like DQXI. My only complaints are that it can be a tad on the easy side, and that there are a few points of no return in the story that cause certain quests to be locked out without warning.

2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch)

Developer: Bandai Namco Studios / Sora Ltd.

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre: Fighting

Release Date: December 7th 2018

Was this really a surprise? A new Smash Bros. game releases the day before my birthday? Of course I’m gonna love it! I had been hyped up for Smash Ultimate for months preceding its release, going as far as watching any gameplay videos on YouTube I could find from various demo events and tournaments around the world. Even after the game’s release, there have been tons of content updates, new fighter DLC, and just so many reasons to come back to the game. It doesn’t hurt that one of the most accessible fighting games of all time is available on a handheld system (literally the only reason I played Smash 3DS). Smash Ultimate stands out in more than just its portability factor, though. While it largely recycles content from previous games, it can be seen as the “Ultimate” Smash Bros game, bringing back every single fighter from the series history, nearly every playable stage, and tons of familiar modes. Not only that, but new content is also present in terms of fighters, stages, and more. Long awaited characters include the Inklings from Splatoon, Ridley from the Metroid series, King K. Rool from Donkey Kong, and surprise guests, including Simon and Richter Belmont from Castlevania. On top of that, a plethora of DLC fighters and stages have been added, with the 5th DLC fighter still upcoming and shrouded in mystery.

Most prominent of the new additions is the game’s approach to a story mode. Unfortunately not as robust as the Subspace Emissary from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, The World of Light is still a welcome addition. In this mode, a strange angelic being called Galeem has turned all of the Smash fighters into evil controlled puppets, except, of course, for Kirby, who sets out to free each of the game’s 70+ fighters from Galeem’s control across a large board of levels, each connected by pathways. Each level features a battle against a copy of one of the game’s fighters possessed by a Spirit, essentially the essence of a video game character, and you have to free the Spirit and claim it by defeating the possessed fighter in a themed battle. This was a really nice way of including references to characters across not only Nintendo’s history, but the whole history of gaming as well, including some characters who do not otherwise appear in Smash, such as Shantae and Rayman. These Spirits, once collected, can be equipped to your character to not only improve your power level, but also offer different buffs, such as resistance to certain attacks, powering up your Smash attacks, starting you off each battle with an item, etc. I definitely enjoyed the World of Light mode, though I felt like it was a tad on the shallow side, and battles could get fairly repetitive after a while.

Fortunately, Smash really shines on its core mechanics, and the most fun I’ve had from the game is exploring all the different characters and finding which ones I like best. My current main is Ganondorf, though I still love playing as Ness and Lucas. Really, this is Smash at its best, and a number of much-needed mechanical tweaks, such as dodge fatigue, directional midair dodging, holding smash move charges, and an overall faster pace make this my favorite Smash game yet.

1. Persona 5 (PS4)

Developer: P-Studio

Publisher: Atlus

Genre: RPG

Release Date: April 4th 2017

Okay, wow. What a game. I’ve never played a Persona or Shin Megami Tensei game before, but buzz for Persona 5 was everywhere, and with the inclusion of P5’s Joker in Smash, I had to check it out. Even though I got to the game nearly two years late, I’m so glad I did.

Persona 5 is an RPG where you take on the role of a high school boy (he doesn’t really have a default name, but the most common name for him is Ren, so that’s what we’ll use) who has gotten tangled up in some legal trouble after intervening in a drunken assault on a woman he witnessed on the street. Turns out, this guy was something of a bigshot, and Ren soon finds himself placed under a form of rehabilitation where he is forced to transfer to the illustrious Shujin Academy in Tokyo. While at Shujin, Ren must live under the guardianship of a man named Shojiro who runs a coffee shop. Ren must stay out of trouble at school and live honestly.

However, trouble almost immediately finds Ren again as he discovers a lecherous teacher is mistreating many of the school’s students, and while investigating, accidentally slips into a strange dimension called the Metaverse, where the twisted perceptions of corrupted people are manifested into reality, and a sprawling Palace exists for the evil teacher. There, Ren meets a strange talking cat named Morgana who offers to help Ren if he will help Morgana find the Treasure at the heart of the Palace. Turns out, the Treasure is the manifestation of what caused the person’s desires to become corrupted, and stealing it causes them to lose their distorted emotions and confess.

Thus, Ren becomes a Phantom Thief, infiltrating Palaces and stealing Treasures by night and masquerading as a humble high school student by day. The Palaces are effectively the game’s dungeons, and this is where combat and exploration take place. Along the way, he’ll discover the power of his Persona, effectively an avatar of the user’s personality that enable them to unleash their true power inside the Metaverse, as well as use special abilities. And of course, you’ll recruit many friends to the Phantom Thieves, all of whom have their own motives and Personae. However, Ren has a special power. Instead of just being limited to one Persona, he has the ability to capture many Persona from the Metaverse by recruiting the game’s enemies or fusing Personae he already has to make more powerful ones. Thus the game has a light monster-collecting aspect to it, as each Persona can be leveled up to unlock new abilities, fused with others, and much more. What’s cool is that each Persona must be persuaded to join you by knocking it down in battle and then speaking to it in whatever way you think it wants to hear.

Outside of Palaces, you’ll investigate your targets, infiltrate a mega-palace called Mementos, as well as managing your free time. You see, Persona 5 allows you a limited amount of time to do everything you want to do, and it’s crucial that you manage your student life as well. This means spending time studying for exams, reading books to improve stats, working part-time jobs for money, playing minigames, and most importantly, hanging out with different NPCs, your teammates and supporters, to boost their friendship levels. As you get higher in friendship with each NPC, you’ll unlock new abilities, some of which are truly game-changing. I really enjoyed this aspect, as it felt like a puzzle trying to figure out how best to use my time. Almost nothing felt wasted, but I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to do everything, so I was always thinking about how best to optimize my time. Unfortunately, you can’t do everything in a single playthrough, but fortunately you can carry a lot of your progress over into New Game+. Some features are actually restricted to NG+, so it makes it feel like that second playthrough is really necessary if you want to see everything.

While the dungeons and the battles are mechanically fairly straightforward JRPG faire, the battles are interesting in that each enemy species has its own strengths and weaknesses, and exploiting weaknesses can knock down the enemy and allow you to take an extra turn, which can lead into strong combos. Furthermore, once all enemies are knocked down, you can perform a powerful All-Out Attack for massive damage. It honestly doesn’t get too much more complicated than that, but there is enough depth to the system to keep you engaged until the end of the game.

Each of the game’s characters are extremely well-designed, and I loved pretty much all of my party members, though Yusuke didn’t click with me as well as some of the others, despite being voiced by the amazing Matt Mercer. My favorite, of course, was the imperious Makoto, who appears little more than a bossy student council president in reality, but explodes into flurries of righteous blows in the Metaverse, alongside her robot motorcycle Persona.

Of course it’s impossible to talk about Persona 5 without mentioning the absolute masterpiece that is this game’s presentation. If you know anything about the game, you’ve likely seen the striking art style used in all of this game’s art and UI. It’s honestly every bit as eye-catching and jaw-dropping as it seems. The music is an utter masterpiece as well, with all manner of swingy jazz tunes, somber piano pieces, heart-pounding rock tracks, all of which come together with the visual style to give you something unlike anything you’ve ever played before and to truly make you feel like a suave Phantom Thief.

I managed to not only get through the main game, but get all the way through a NG+ playthrough back-to-back to get that platinum trophy and not once did I feel bored doing so. I clocked in at around 200 hours in total and it was one of the best gaming experiences of my life. If you like RPGs, time management games, good anime-style stories, or just good games, do NOT pass this one up, especially the upcoming Royal version that’s releasing in March.

#gaming #top 10 #top 10 games of 2019 #article

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theonyxpath · 6 years ago

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Yes, we’re down to the last week of the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter – and so I know you’ll all be sad to know that it’s my last week of coming up with awful pun-ny titles for this blog based on the KS.

(Never fear, in several weeks we’ll be starting the Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter campaign, and you KNOW I’ll have pirate titles for the run on that!)

(Of course, I may just title them “Yarrr!1”, “Yarrr!2”, and so on.)

But back to The Contagion Chronicle!

We’re looking to finish strong on Thursday, so this is really the home stretch. Hopefully, at this point, backers are able to tell whether the project is intriguing them based on the text that’s almost done being released.

And hopefully, folks who are wondering about backing have seen enough from backers posting here and on social media, and the various Actual Play vids that Matthew and James have linked to, to give the project a shot.

Remember, you can back for a mere pittance and get the chance the review the text yourself without being locked in to pledging at the end. Well, at least until it really is the end on Thursday – at that point Kickstarter charges everybody!

Also, by backing at a bit more than a mere pittance, you’ll also receive links to the PDFs of the two Stretch Goal projects that have been being built up throughout the course of the Kickstarter when they are finished. More locations and some alternative rules in the one, and guides to crossovers on a more nuts and bolts level in the other.

Adventures For Curious Cats illustration by Pat Loboyko

Mighty Matt McElroy wanted me to thank all of you that made our 20th Anniversary WoD books PDF sale a huge success! We’re thrilled that so many of you took it as a chance to catch up on some of the WoD20 books you hadn’t yet checked out! Thanks!

He also mentioned reminding all you awesome people that we have two sales on physical books going on at Indie Press Revolution: for physical hardback copies of the Pathfinder rules edition of the Scarred Lands Players Guide, and for the Deluxe 20th Anniversary physical books that IPR still have in stock.

Or, if you prefer, Studio2 also has the Scarred Lands Players Guide – Pathfinder edition – physical books on a deep discount sale right now. You can check out the links below in the BLURBS!

We’ll be having some very cool info about the Scarred Lands Creature Collection for 5e coming up in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll say this now, the monster art is looking gorgeous!

Book of Oblivion illustration by Drew Tucker

Following up on last week, we immediately started using the new Errata Form for the Geist 2e and Trinity Continuum KS backers as Backer PDFs went out to them.

So far, the form seems to be working fantastically, so thanks to all of you who have used it for sending us your feedback on these two projects!

Along with that, it’s our plan to wrap up the situation with the Scion 2e errata this week. Neall is working on a message for our Scion community to go with the fixes and a downloadable errata sheet, and our shipper is supposed to start sending out all the KS packages this week.

Our apologies to everyone concerned, frustrated, maddened, or just confused by this whole thing. We truly appreciate everyone’s patience in letting us take the time to delve into what happened, and the extent of the number of errata fixes that got “unfixed”.

It’s like that warning on airlines to don your oxygen mask before assisting others. We had to end our own confusion before we could explain what happened and how we’re dealing with it. And that’ll come later this week.

Dystopia Rising: Evolution illustration by Marco Gonzales

One other thing I wanted to note, which came out of the Scion errata thing, but has popped up before, is that when I’m writing this blog, I generally have to bear in mind that for any given situation I’m trying to address, there are many segments of our community I’m addressing.

What I mean is that sometimes I will make a point during discussing one thing that is also addressing other concerns that other members of our community have. These are folks that maybe don’t feel comfortable voicing their concerns in the dangerous seas of social media, but who have sent me private messages. I need to be responsive to them – but I don’t want to “out” them.

(And there are also those private messages that rip me a new one, that I also don’t share because I’m not here to get into flame-wars, but which have items in them that aren’t true and I don’t want to leave unaddressed).

In both those kinds of cases, if you see a series of messages and I respond and seem to veer off to talk about something else that’s not directly prompted by the thread – this is what is probably on my mind with my answer.

After all, we have a community containing folks of all ages, all kinds of interests, all walks of life, and who may love one, some, or all of our game worlds, and I need to always bear that in mind and try and give everybody the connections they need to explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Now in it’s LAST FEW DAYS, the Contagion continues to spread, passing 1275 backers and infecting all in its path with more and more Stretch Goals! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/contagion-chronicle-a-chronicles-of-darkness-cross

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

He also asks for your Contagion Chronicle-related questions here: https://youtu.be/axvrFeQOvEg

Matthew’s interview on Flames Rising about Contagion Chronicle: http://www.flamesrising.com/matthew-dawkins-is-infected-with-the-contagion-chronicle/

Our next Kickstarter starting in several weeks will be for Pirates of Pugmire!

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Illustration by Charles Bates

On this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, our team takes a deep dive into the epic “Greco-Apocalyptic” fantasy of The Scarred Lands game line! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

It’s a new episode of the Onyx Path News from host, Matthew Dawkins: https://youtu.be/Cjqey_N3_jQ

Matthew also lets loose several previews regarding Mummy: The Curse Second Edition here: https://youtu.be/X9lbz4TWY9s

If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!

The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4

Red Moon Roleplaying have commenced their actual play of Scarred Lands, in a campaign Matthew Dawkins is running named The Great Vilhaim Heist! https://youtu.be/QUFVS4g6gDg

Caffeinated Conquests also continue with their foray into the Scarred Lands, with the Gauntlet of Spiragos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVL40fkPX8

And as if that wasn’t enough, Devil’s Luck Gaming are still hard at it on the dangerous seas of Scarred Lands on their Twitch channel! https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

The Story Told Podcast have not one but two shows for you to check out, as they continue their chronicle of Dragon-Blooded for Exalted 3rd Edition, and have even reviewed it today! https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/

Here’s the Gamer’s Table again with their They Came from Beneath the Sea! actual play: http://gamerstable.com/cheesy-sci-fi-horror/

Cheesy Sci-Fi/Horror

And Occultists Anonymous, the Mage: The Awakening chronicle, also continues here: https://youtu.be/i4NNs_G0NNw

If Vampire is your thing, here’s an actual play of the Blood War for Vampire: The Requiem on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhai2P1uktAzDEch4d1r2JZir0VqUrBQJ

And the Dramatic Failure podcast crew continue with their Geist: The Sin-Eaters chronicle too! https://dramaticfailure.podbean.com/

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here’s an update from the App devs:

Onyx Dice! We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice. Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.

We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly. A fix is coming shortly. A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio 2: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

The Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) and WoD 20th Anniversary Deluxe sales on IPR are still going until the end of the month!: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’ll be offering our monthly Exalted 3rd PDF releases on DriveThruRPG!

CONVENTIONS

UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd From the US comes Eddy Webb, Matt McElroy, and Rich Thomas to join with Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vann, John Burke, Chris Allen, and Klara Herbol! Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14 GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss for 5e (Scarred Lands)

DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Manuscript Approval:

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing:

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Post-Editing Development:

C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Indexing:

Trinity Core

Trinity Aeon

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Chicago By Night – Art coming in slowly but surely.

They Came From Beneath the Sea!

EX3 Lunars

Hunter: The Vigil 2

Contagion Chronicle – KS.

VtR Spilled Blood – Hiring artists.

M20 Book of the Fallen – Contracted.

Dark Eras 2 – Getting artnotes in from devs.

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Contracted.

Pirates of Pugmire – KS art contracted, sketches and finals coming in.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – With Josh.

Shunned By the Moon

Scion Jumpstart

Aeon Aexpansion

Proofing

C20 Player’s Guide – At WW for approval.

The Realm

Book of Oblivion – Inputting last corrections.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – At WW for approval.

Signs of Sorcery – First Proof.

Trinity Core and Aeon Screens

At Press

Scion Hero – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Origin – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Dice – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Scion Screen – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.

Fetch Quest – Shipped to backers, prepping PoD version.

In Media Res – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Geist 2e – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.

Scarred Lands Spell Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Adventures for Curious Cats – Going out to backers.

Tales of Excellent Cats – Going out to backers.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE:

Today is Earth Day, and we live here, so let’s celebrate doing what we can to keep Gaia alive!

#Onyx Path Publishing

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