#apparently I am into a clever woman telling me how much of a failure and useless test subject I am

[i-oooo]

GLaDOS, my queen

I don't think of myself as someone with a degradation kink.....

But then I replay Portal. And GLaDOS makes me question everything.

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS DAYLIGHT Vol. 2 Sakamaki Shuu [Track 3]

Original title: 眠りの底へ

Source: Diabolik Lovers Daylight Vol. 2 Sakamaki Shuu

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Toriumi Kousuke

Translator’s note: Seems like karma came back to bite Shuu in the ass because after calling the MC ‘a bother’ for two tracks straight, he now begins to realize just how important she actually is to him. They do say that you don’t notice how much you love someone, until you’ve already lost them and wellー I suppose that’s the concept Rejet went with this time. 

Track 1 ll Track 2 ll Track 3 ll Track 4 ll Track 5 + Epilogue

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

Track 3: Into a Deep Slumber

“ーー Oi! ...Oi, I’m talking to you!”

*Rustle*

“What are you doing...? This is the living room, you know? If you’re going to start sleeping here, then I’m pretty sure you’re in no position to judge me for doing the same.”

You don’t respond.

“Are you even listening? You didn’t just doze off, but were actually asleep?”

You nod.

“Hmー I mean, it doesn’t really matter but could you please stop always being one step ahead of me? For some reason, whenever I set my sights on a napping spot, you’re already there. It’s honestly a bothーー ...? ...Aren’t you kind of weird today? ...You’ve always been an airhead, but even so, today you’re...”

You start nodding off again.

“Haah...!? Oi...! Wait! You’re not gonna fall asleep again, riーー”

Shuu’s voice grows distant before cutting off.

“...You’ve got to be kidding me. She actually fell asleep in the middle of our conversation. Has she always been the type to just nod off like that regardless of the time or place? ーー Or rather, I can’t lie down when she’s already here. ...If I just abandon her here like this, it’s highly likely either Ayato or Laito will try and abuse the situation. Hm...What an annoyance.”

Shuu picks you up.

*Rustle rustle*

“...Not waking up even after being lifted into the air, huh? Is she actually fast asleep? ...She seems strangely light. Has she always been this light? Oh well, whatever. It’d be troublesome if one of the other guys saw me doing this. From here...My room’s the closest, huh? Pwaah...Nnh...I’m already sleepy though...”

He walks off with you, bringing you to his room.

*SCENE SHIFT*

Shuu lays you down on the bed.

*Thud*

"Haah...I wonder how much she has to trouble me until she’s satisfied? This is exactly why I struggle dealing with her...I’m out of energy, completely exhausted.”

He plops down next to you.

*Rustle*

*TIMESKIP*

“Zz...Zz...Nnh...Hm?”

*Rustle*

“Oh...”

*Rustle*

“I must have dozed off as well...”

He looks over at you.

“Oi. Are you still snoozing? ...Pretty sure she’ll make a fuss again if I don’t wake her up in time for school. Haah... Oi.”

*Rustle*

“How long do you intend to sleep for? Don’t you think it’s about time you wake up?”

You don’t wake up at all.

“...Oi!”

*Rustle*

( No matter how many times I called out for her, or shook her shoulder, she wouldn’t wake up. Something was off. I could tell as much. )

“...What’s going on? ...I guess my best bet would be...Consulting with Reiji, I guess?”

Shuu leaves the room.

( After witnessing how she would fail to react to anything, Reiji came up with a certain hypothesis. While it was obviously odd for her not to wake up, the thing which bothered him the most was her weakened physical health. This had extended to her heartbeat as well, with her heart apparently having grown weaker. In other words, he assumed that she had fallen into a deep slumber, either to protect her heart from giving in, or as a way to fight back against her own detoriating health. 

I couldn’t help but let a chuckle slip. I failed to grasp how such a ridiculous situation would suddenly occur. However, even if I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t deny that the same woman who usually wouldn’t give me a break, was now there laying completely unmoving in front of my eyes. )

*TIMESKIP*

Shuu enters your room.

*Thud*

“...It’s almost as if she has entered hibernation. If you fell asleep to keep yourself alive and preserve energy, then I must say that was quite the clever idea coming from you.”

( However, protecting her own heart came at a price. As long as she remained asleep like this, it would never heal. Without being given something to replenish her body, she was headed straight to the grave. ...On top of that, her heart is special. Giving her the same treatment as a regular human would be meaningless. If there was something which could help her, it has to be... )

“Haah...I didn’t think I’d ever have to pierce through my own skin.”

He bites himself.

“Ughーー!!”

*Drip drip*

“Hah...Did I trust them in too deep? I’m always just biting as I please after all, so I don’t know how to hold myself back. ...Oh well, you better don’t spit it back out even if it tastes bad.”

Shuu gives you his blood mouth-to-mouth.

*Smooch*

“You will drink my blood...The usual roles are reversed, huh? Well, it’s not like we’ll notice change right away, huh? For one, I’m still doubtful whether simply feeding you my blood will have any effect.”

*Rustle*

“...Reiji must have taken notice that something was wrong with you. He pointed out your pale complexion before, didn’t he? ...I didn’t realize at all. Even though I should be the one who spent the most time with you. I suppose it would be more correct to say that I didn’t make any effort to notice. When you told me you were feeling under the weather at the infirmary, I brushed it off as if it was nothing as well. And this...is the result of that. ...Hah, I really am a failure of a heir in every single way, huh? 

ーー It’s quiet. I’m not really in the mood to go to school, so guess I’ll get some sleep as well. It’s not like she’ll complain about me lying down next to her now.”

He joins you in bed. 

“Hm...”

*Rustle rustle*

“Ugh...Tsk...”

*Rustle*

“Ugh...Guess I can’t sleep when I know there’s nobody who will come and wake me up.”

Shuu gets up from the bed and leaves the room.

( From that day onwards, I would visit her every day to donate my own blood. However, even after several days or weeks had passed, nothing changed aside from the increasing number of bite marks on my own hands and arms. She still continues to sleep to this day. Without looking at my face, or reacting to my voice, just quietly slumberingーー )

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

[the-romantic-lady]

Do you believe the theory that George of Clarence was killed because he knew Edward and Elizabeth's marriage was not valid? It seems plausible to me, George didn't do anything more than he used to, he always liked to create intrigues. Do you think Elizabeth and Edward's marriage was invalid? And one last question, do you believe that George had the necessary qualities to be king?

Hi anon!! Thanks for coming back and keeping the discussion going :D

Do you believe the theory that George of Clarence was killed because he knew Edward and Elizabeth's marriage was not valid?

That is always a very interesting theory to me. The thing people say is that George had disrupted the "king's justice" by executing that lady (can't remember her name). But the thing is that this is the same George who fought against his own brother? The same George who married against the king's order? The same George who called his own brother a bastard? So the question is, did Edward just get sick of it? But why now? So many questions.

But in terms of my belief, yes I do. Richard wrote a letter to James Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond at how the death of both George and James' father were caused by "certain persons". Elizabeth Woodville was set to have a hand in Desmond's death and likely George too. Its also interesting that after George's death, Edward is said to have said that no one stopped him from executing George. It definitely weighed on his conscience so why did he do it? George was the king's brother. Not uncle, nephew, cousin but blood brother. Executing him was very shocking. He could have done so much to punish him. Imprisonment, stripping of land and offices, exile but execution? I am surprised that not enough people address that. It was a very extreme move by Edward. Interestingly, one of the charges against George is slander against the queen and Edward's heir. Bishop Stillington who was in the tower when George was is the same who told Richard of the marriage. The possibility can't be ignored. Its possible that George found out and Edward had no choice at that point. George also made it easy for Edward. Richard was cautious and more clever but George, not so much. Like I said before the Plantagenet men just went crazy after their wives died. He should have aligned with Richard and played it smart. But who really knows? If George had found out, he seems like the kind of guy to just shout it during his trial. Its all a mess and Tudor rewriting of history doesn't help. I personally think he definitely knew something he should not have. Sometimes I think that Edward just let George live. His execution was private so its possible that he was let off lol. A bit far-fetched but I somewhat believe it.

Do you think Elizabeth and Edward's marriage was invalid?

Yes. In 1461 (when that pre-contract apparently took place), Edward was in the Welsh Marches. The woman he was said to have the pre-contract with was in Shrewsbury which is on the Welsh Marches. Richard was 9 years old. It is possible that Edward told him about her but its very unlikely. The key thing that tells me that the accusation was real is the lack of witnesses. Bishop Stillington said he was the only one there. If Richard made it all up, why could he not pay one of his evil people to pretend they were a witness? To me, it seems that it was real. Also add to that, Elizabeth's intolerance. Many queens were slandered and not even Margaret of Anjou lashed out the way Elizabeth did. Interestingly, not even Elizabeth refuted the accusation. Its likely she knew and was paranoid about it. Edward really conned everyone lol.

And one last question, do you believe that George had the necessary qualities to be king?

As much as I love George, I think not. He was driven by personal ambition. Any attacks he made were for his own gain. I think Edward and Richard put in a blender would have made the perfect king. George would be a great businessman but not king. Compare him to Richard, who despite being the youngest brother tried to maintain the balance. Whether or not Richard was good is another question but he was certainly king material. I think like Edward, George had the charm but not the patience. Richard lacked the charm but had patience and intellect. George was not even famed in battle. So I would say he would be a complete failure in Medieval kingship. Even more so than his brothers.

[dappercritter]

Random She-Ra Season 5 Thoughts: THE FINAL RAMBLING

Yep. I finally got all my crazy absurd thoughts about this gay adventure-romance-drama cartoon summarized into one incoherent yet fun to read computer document/article! ...four months after the show itself ended. Oh well, no one’s perfect. Anyways, there are a whole lot more insane observations than ever before, so I had to put it below a link so this thing didn’t back up my blog or any of yours. Hope you enjoy reading through these as much I enjoyed spouting them for no discernible reason other than I felt like it!

-I feel that since is the last season, I ought to talk about an important part of the show that I’ve been putting off: the animation. It’s… okay. It’s definitely smoother than what the original 80’s show and it’s brother series (heheh) looked like, but at the same time it still seems to suffer from similar limitations which causes some distracting moments of stiffness. But other than that, it’s pretty good. It’s no Titmouse or Studio Mir but it looks good and it gets the job done.

         -After all, let’s not forget: “Imperfection is beautiful!”

-Even when things are at their lowest, Adora is a jock with a heart of gold.

-Horde Prime and the Galactic Horde’s aesthetic feels like a mixture of Catholicism, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, and modern Microsoft, and honestly, that just makes him creepier.

-Speaking of Horde Prime, he didn’t waste any time with destroying Bright Moon. …apparently.

-Furthermore, on the topic of his giant holographic messages, WAS THAT A FREAKING MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MOVIE REFERENCE?!

-Boy, Glimmer and Catra sure got along quickly! It’s almost like they magically understand each other because they both assumed leadership roles and screwed up big time! …I guess.

         -Either that or this season is going to be a speedrun.

-Wow, the Rebellion sure got used to having a once-thought-dead king as well as a known enemy general/abuser running around their camp awful fast, didn’t they?

-Mara’s got a spaceship, a cyber girlfriend, a magic grandma, a dragon, a tragic backstory, AND a force ghost?! Dang, even in death, the girl’s got it all. No wonder everyone likes her!

-(*me looking at the TV rating at the start of episode*) “Why is language in there? Is there surprise cuss words or something in this season?” (*sees Horde Prime seize control of a clone for the first time*) “HOLY FREAKING SH—oh that’s why.”

-Applause to the crew for making the “dinner with Prime” scene for making a meal between a sparkly princess, a catgirl, and alien cult leader feel even more uncomfortable than it had a right to.

-(*me throughout the season whenever a clone was onscreen*) Is that Hordak? Is that him? Is that him? Is that him right there? Oh it is—oh no wait. … Is that h—

-Extra applause for having Glimmer learn from her grey-area wetwipe phase and refusing to sell out her friends again whilst telling the imperialist cult leader where to stick it.

-I would pay a sizeable portion of my life savings to hear what a Scorpia and Swift Wind duet would sound like.

         -In fact, I’d double it if it was just Scorpia singing.

         -Ah what the heck. I would triple it for an entire She-Ra musical!

-As happy as I am to see to see Entrapta interacting with the other princesses again, I have to say that their big reunion left me with some mixed feelings. Here’s a quick rundown:

         -Entrapta, a grown autistic woman, being led around on a leash by non-neurodivergent teenagers—again: that’s bad.

         -The Princesses confronting Entrapta about joining the Horde: that’s good!

         -The Princesses blaming all their problems with the Horde bots on Entrapta’s actions and her hyper fixations alone: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta explaining herself, admitting that she regrets her mistakes, and getting the Princesses to understand that she thinks and communicates differently, but in spite of that, she really does want help find Glimmer: that’s good!

         -Entrapta never gets to call out the Princesses for how poorly they treated her: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta saves the day and goes to space: that’s good!

         -Scorpia and Entrapta still haven’t interacted even though the former is with the Rebellion in the first place because she went to look for her because she is her best friend: …can I go home now?

-How nice! Michah finally got to shapeshift!

         -And he’s rocking that She-Ra outfit to boot!

-So is Darla a back up of Light Hope or do they just run on the same operating system and have the same voice?

-I could watch an entire season of Adora, Bow, and Entrapta going on space adventure in a rundown ship with their custom-made spacesuits, tbh.

-Is anyone else weirded out that Catra’s younger self looked at her in her flashback(?).

         -Actually what WAS happening there, anyhow?

-(*watching Bow’s spacewalk to save Glimmer*) “Is that a Gravity reference?” asked the man who never saw Gravity.

-Speaking of spacewalks, how did Glimmer survive those precious few seconds in space? Does the teleporter teleport a breathable atmosphere too?

         -Also, Catra, WHY did you think it would be a good idea to teleport Glimmer into space? I know you had a plan and the ship was right there but… Ah, never mind.

-Not that I’m complaining but Glimmer’s apology to the rest of the friend squad for her HORRIBLE plan last season went… surprisingly quickly.

-You know as cool as The Star Siblings are, being a quirky band of space-travelling siblings with cool powers and some trans rep to boot, I only have one small problem with them: weren’t there already Star Sisters on Etheria back in season 1?

         -That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about Masters of the Universe characters to dispute it.

-Entrapta confirmed pan, objectum, AND horny on main. Dang girl, you’re gonna have fun whether you got Hordak back or not…

-“The Velvet Glove” is both a menacing and stupid name for a decadent overlord’s mothership.

         -Wait, it’s from the 80’s canon? Oh. That kind of explains it, actually.

-Goshdangit, I wanted Catra to face punishment for her crimes, but I didn’t think that would involve going to evil alien conversion therapy!

         -Nor did I want her to die! For a second. Actually, since it obviously wasn’t going to last I was… weirdly okay with that part???

-Horde Prime seems awfully okay with Catradora. I mean he’s still super creepy and manipulative about it, but also oddly progressive for an evil brainwashing cult leader.

-(*Adora transforms into a She-Ra through seer will*) First of all, called it. Second of all, WOAH MAMA now that’s a glow up!

-Wrong Hordak did not have to be a thing, and yet, I’m glad that he is.

-Hordak remembers the LUVD crystal and Entrapta… Hordak remembers Entrap—! It’s happening! Oh my gosh, it’s happening! Everybody stay calm!

-Wow, Entrapta didn’t have to be so forgiving of Catra for everything she’s done to her but she did. Only I’m not sure if that was Entrapta taking the high road or the low road.

         -Or which road the crew took for that matter.

-I remember when I thought those “Chipped AUs” floating around here on tumblr were just something the fans came up with and that chipping people was not an actual despicable thing Prime does in canon. I miss those days.

-I know it’s not the same as before or the original design, but True She-Ra’s designs and powers? I think they slappin’.

-Hooray, Adora and Catra are finally making up! And it only took four and half seasons worth of communication failures, toxic villainous behaviour, and physical violence for Catra to snap out of it!

         -…We can go back to Entrapdak now, right?

-Poor Elberon. First they unknowingly adopt a double agent then get invaded by the Horde and now they’re getting brainwashed and chipped by the Galactic Horde. They might be a cute village, but they got some pretty lousy security.

-You know it’s cute that Micah is doing his best to be friends with Frosta and get back in touch with his dad-side, but look I can’t be the only one worried about how the local King is a less proactive leader than the princesses or the known war criminal/abuser, right?

-“The Perils of Peekablue” or as I like to call it, “You Thought ‘Boys Night Out’ Caught You Emotionally Off-guard? Hah! Watch This.”

-You know I didn’t think Scorpfuma would be a thing aside that one moment of flirting near the end of season 4, but they really pushed for it to be a thing! This is… actually pretty great! Perfuma’s not perfect, and I would have appreciated giving them a little more time to bond and form some real chemistry, but at least she reciprocates Scorpia’s sweetness instead of rebuffing it in increasingly aggressive fashion.

-I’m not sure what’s more concerning: that Mermista set a boat on fire, that it’s worded like she had a fling as part of some experimental phase, or that Sea Hawk is turned on by this.

-Peekablue might not be real, (I think?) but he is one dapper dude! Female-to-male redesigns could learn a thing or two from him.

-It involved them getting stung and seizuring, but that was a heck of a way to reintroduce Double Trouble! I swear I got watching them cycle through their transformations in some sort of physical reaction.

         -Or maybe that was just me worrying about their wellbeing…

-Okay, I get the Chips are huge, and actually rather clever threat, but how do these characters get chipped in the first place? I get there are chipped people who spread the chips throught the population but where do they get those from???

         -Do one of those Horde Prime drones just sneak behind someone, slap a chip on their nape then hand them a whole bagfull and say, “Beep boop beep, Horde Prime’s Light, blah blah blah. Alright have fun, kiddo”?

         -Or is it some sort of Alien: Covenant deal where they’re just floating around and Lord help you if one sticks to you?

-HOLY CRAP THEY ACTUALLY GOT SCORPIA TO SING! AND SHE WAS GREAT!

         -Oh shoot. Guess I owe the crew twice my life savings now…

-Entrapdak might be what got me into this show, but it’s Double Trouble that kept me around, so you can imagine how happy I was to see them make their grand reappearance!

-Conversly, you can imagine my disappointment when they just disappeared until the finale.

         -And on that note: HOW DID YOU GUYS LOSE DOUBLE TROUBLE?!

                  -You forgot to cherish them, didn’t you?

-So, Scorpia sacrifices herself just after finding a new girlfriend and gaining some newfound confidence, Mermista and Sea Hawk are split up,and Double Trouble didn’t join the main cast. Why can’t you just have fun like a normal cartoon, show?

-Gosh, I love me some shifting title cards!

-Is it just me or did they sneak in some more Annihilation references on Krytis?

         (-Said the guy who was too chicken to watch the movie and just read about it and watched a few clips online.)

-(*audibly sighs*) FINE. I guess I like Catradora now. Are you happy now, SPOP Crew? ARE YOU?!

-Hooray, Catra’s got a emotional support animal! And they’re a shapeshifting magic alien cat. Those are the best kind!

-Is it weird that I knew that weird glowing stuff on Krytis was just magic all along, or was it just not hidden very well. Anyways, I like Krytis. I like that we got to see a truly alien world with its own form of magic.

-Plus, we got a logical advancement of the magic versus science subtheme with magic being Horde Prime’s weakness! Neato!

-Getting back on the “which is worse?” wagon for a second, I don’t know what feels less right: that Wrong Hordak’s big revelation and his resolution to free himself and his brothers and friends from Horde Prime’s control is played humorously, or that Real Hordak should be the one having this moment.

-That bit with Castaspella and Shadow Weaver where she tells Casta about Etheria being a living thing with inherent magical property, or whatever, while we got a peaceful shot of some boar creatures sleeping was actually kind of nice. It would have been nicer though if it wasn’t part of a power hungry abuser’s obvious scheme. If only there was a kindly old witch lady character who was in touch with nature and knew just what to say when someone was feeling downOH WAIT.

-Furthermore… Why did Shadow Weaver and Castaspella need to have romantic tension?

-Seriously though, where’s our Madame Razz quota this season? Where’s my supportive magic grandma timelord at, yo?

-Yup, they speedran this season.

-I’m actually really disappointed we didn’t see more of an intergalactic new rebellion rising up to fight Horde Prime’s forces across the universe. Especially if it meant we got to see more Star Sibling action!

-Again, I adore Wrong Hordak but I keep wondering what was keeping the crew from just bringing in Original Flavour Hordak. (You know, aside from teasing us Entrapdak fans and trying to distract us with a loveable new character in the meantime.) I mean he could have done the whole infiltrating the clone squads and tricking them bit, too.

         -Heck, he could have done the wink, too!

-I’d gleefully point out Loo-Kee’s cameo this season but apparently, they already made some several seasons ago. That’s what I get for not rewatching the 80’s show and training my eyes first.

-(*sees Erelandians*) Are those freaking Toads and Toadettes?

-So, what’s keeping them from just hitting Spinerella’s chip again? Besides emotional baggage and gale force winds, I mean.

-Perfuma coming out of a cave scared out of her wits, demanding to know who’s there, clinging to her friends as soon as they come back, and balling her eyes out is a big, BIG mood.

-Frosta absolutely decking Catra in the face was nestled somewhere between cathartic and excessive.

         -Netossa spraying her with a bottle of water on the other hand…

-Oh, so Greyskull was the name of a Rebel Squad! I think. Meh, the important thing is we got an explanation and it still sounds cool.

-Leave it to a couple of dads to make a secret message out of a dad joke.

-You know I made fun of Light Hope for being creepy, but I swear that avatar from the Spire is even creepier. I don’t know if it’s her face—those dang blank eyes, man—or just that it she’s less animated than the real thing, but it just felt… off.

-Aww, Noelle made Netossa’s princess weakness illustrations! So cute!

-Forget episodes that deserves Emmys, Keston John deserves one for voicing Hordak, Horde Prime, all the clones, and several minor villains and giving each and every single one a distinct voice! Where my king’s respect, eh?

-Yes, Catra you had a small disagreement with Hordak. …Over sending his girlfriend and your “friend” to DIE IN A LITERAL LIVING HELL.

         -Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.

-Why does Perfuma get pressured to get angry and go wild when Entrapta’s the one who’s had it the worst out of all them? Why can’t my gamer girl go berserk, dammit!?

-Okay, but really, how do these fricking chips work??? Are they parasite devices who store Horde Prime’s Baptizing Dew then slowly pump it into their host’s bodies? Do they have their own nervous systems? Are they technorganic? Also, how and why do we need to make these chips are bigger threat then they need to be?

-Horde Prime showing up on Hordak’s throne in grand Killing Joke style and casually throwing shades at his brother’s overblown attempts to impress him is pretty awesome, but it feels strangely underdeveloped. Hordak’s not there to have his hard work insulted and we never got to see Adora have any similar encounter with Hordak here before, so unless you look at it from the perspective of someone who has been here before in the Horde story like Catra it lacks the dramatic weight it should have had.

-Scorpia resisting the chip to save her new friends was pretty great, though.

-I swear, when they got to the scene where Adora and the others figured out that Shadow Weaver was grooming her so she could use her to get to the Heart of Etheria, I was mouthing “You B***H” through the whole thing.

-They really brought back Etherian deep magic just so they had something to make Micah threatening. …okay.

-Okay, the rest of “Failsafe” messed me up, so here’s a rundown on all the other messy thoughts I had while the show ripped my heart and ground it to dog food:

         -Entrapta and Hordak reuniting: Yay!

         -Swift Wind yanking her away before she can get through to him: Boo.

         -Catra encouraging Adora to try and take care of herself for a change: Yay!

         -Adora hurts Catra and she runs away: Boo.

         -Adora finally calling out Shadow Weaver on what an utterly horrible person she is: Yay!

         -Adora resolves to risk sacrificing herself to save the world: Bo—okay, seriously, was all this suffering really necessary, show?

-I know I mentioned in my previous She-Ra random thoughts that I supported Glimmadora, but I am okay with Catradora and Glimbow ending up canon. The only problem I have is how rushed they feel—moreso with Glimbow. With Catradora, the crew had an entire season to make it work again and they took it. Glimbow it feels like they were down to the last few episodes and went, “Oh right, we were gonna do something with these two!” then did their darndest to fit in some chemistry in between all the other stuff going down.

-As ominous as it was, the music where Horde Prime starts hacking Etheria honestly SLAPS.

-Okay, I know everyone is magic or something, but I am legit surprised getting electrocuted in water didn’t kill the heroes right then and there.

-Sea Hawk tries to flirt with his girl even as she’s trying to kill him. Truly, he is a man of taste.

-What do you know, Shadow Weaver can only do good when she’s (canonically!) punch drunk.

-You know a whole lot of this could have been avoided if Holo-Mara was Adora’s mentor instead of Light Hope.

-When I think about it, it was actually really clever to make Horde Prime the final villain for Adora to face: a domineering decadent man who’s been in power forever against a humble emotionally vulnerable compassionate young woman.

         -Not to mention the divide between cult-like oppression and progressive freedom. Or something.

-Holy crap, did the First Ones get a great freaking a Great Old One for a guard dog?!

-So, you guys seriously didn’t bring Angella back to reunite with her family OR mention her all season after the impact her death had on everyone all last season until Glimmer needs a power-up at the last possible minute and then you never bring her up again. That is absolutely a dick move in bird culture.

-Entrapta’s hacker sticker gives me life. Gamer girl gremlin princess forever!

-On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Adora and Catra don’t get to have an awesome couple battle against the security monster and win. On the other hand, Shadow Weaver is finally dead. YAY!

         -With apologies to the writers and especially Lorraine Toussaint. She did splendidly bringing this character to life and even if I hated Shadow Weaver, I adored the effort she put into making her one of the most emotionally complex villains I’ve ever seen.

-Words cannot, will not, and will never describe the pure joy that I experienced when I first saw Hordak’s big scene: standing up to and disowning his tyrant brother, saving Entrapta, declaring his love to her (albeit in a nicely lowkey fashion), and then throwing Horde Prime to his apparent doom Disney style with Entrapta cheering him with sheer glee. GOSH, it was everything I could have hoped for from this season!

         -Now if only they kept the deleted scene where they got a moment to themselves before Prime body-jacked him again like the creepy sonuvabich he is.

-Horde Prime just wouldn’t be a religious villain if he didn’t tell everyone to burn.

         -Bonus points for actually trying to burn the frigging planet.

-Aside from the idea of Adora switching to wearing a She-Ra themed dress everywhere in the future, the future vision was really quite sweet, and seeing Prime step in to ruin it made it all the more impactful.

-Can I just say that it’s absolutely wonderful that the show, for all it’s flaws, said  “**** senseless heroic sacrifices”?

-BREAKING: Lesbian cat finally makes up with her jock ex, has a canon kiss so pure it saves the world!

         -In other news, Catradora fans are still spoiled rotten.

-Wow, look at all those character comebacks they skipped through! Look, there’s the chefs from Dryl, Double Trouble, Huntara, the Horde Trio, Imp, Madame Razz—are you kidding me?!

-Grumbling aside, I actually find the idea of the Horde Trio and Imp getting involved in a G-rated science-fantasy version of the first Hangover movie quite amusing.

-Oh dang, they pulled a Castle in the Sky with the Velvet Glove!

-As nice as it was to see Aodra save Hordak from Horde Prime and destroy the latter through exorcism via sheer compassion, I’m rather disappointed we never got to see She-Ra go full Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengence on any creepy old cult leaders.

         -Yeah, it would have gone against the “love conquers all” set up, but love takes on many forms, does it not? So, why can it not manifest as cleaving your mortal enemies with extreme prejudice to save your loved ones?

-Furthermore, in addition to Holo-Mara being a better mentor, Hordak raising Adora instead Shadow Weaver could have prevented a lot of similar problems. Maybe. Possibly.

         -Eh whatever, he has a lifetime’s worth of fanfiction to make up for it.

-ENTRAPDAK IS CANON, ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

-And so is Catradora and Glimbow! That’s nice, too.

-Aww, how sweet of them to skip through Catra and Scorpia, and Glimmer and Micah’s big reunions! It’s not like we’ve been waiting forever for this stuff or anything. HahahahAHAHAHDHAHAHFHAFHKSADJHFKAJHDfine.

-And so it all ends with everyone either friends, in love, or both, as heroes decide to make up for it all with a grandiose sequel promising more exciting space adventures we probably won’t see! HOORAY!

-All snarky ranting aside, I actually really enjoyed the finale. It was exciting, heartwarming, and above all it ended on happy, hopeful note without leaving too many frustrating questions unanswered. (*glares with utmost contempt at Voltron and Star vs. The Forces of Evil*)

-You know, this wasn’t bad for a final season, but I think this might have worked better as two seasons. Not in Netflix’s cheap “split a regular 13-episode season in two 6-7 episode long seasons” strategy, but I mean two full seasons with their own storylines leading up to the grand finale:

         -First, one that starts out with Horde Prime’s arrival the downfall of Etheria, focuses on the space adventures, ends with their return to Etheria and gives the characters time to recuperate from season 4.

         -Then, we have one final season that focuses on the Best Friend Squad’s Return to Etheria, Horde Prime’s plan, gives everyone more time to properly reconcile before ¾ of the entire cast gets chipped, sets up a new Rebellion made up of Princess Alliance and former Etherian Horde members, maybe even set up a proper Hordak redemption arc or something, and then our big happy ending.

-On a mostly unrelated note, I also feel that the whole show could have turned out even better if it had been either a dedicated science-fantasy war drama with some levity (like the good Star Wars shows or Avatar: The Last Airbender) or a lighthearted yet empowering slice-of-life action-adventure romcom (i.e. basically a well-made remake of the original show in the style of Adventure Time and Parks and Rec or something).

-My final random thought for this whole thing: we really could have used a triumphant end credits song or something. Aside from obviously recommending Fabulous Secret Powers, I would have also recommended the original 4 Non Blondes “What’s Going On,” a reprise of “Warriors,” Gorillaz’s “We Got the Power,” or (my favourite) Talking Head’s “(Nothing But) Flowers” since the ending scenes remind me of it.

Thanks again to the crew for giving me something to live for and/or complain about!

Now, let’s hope the He-Man reboots do as well...

[charliejrogers]

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) - Review & Analysis

Here’s a non-controversial statement: 2017’s Wonder Woman is a legitimately great film (if you discount the last act’s boring battle). A fun, yet emotional anti-war tale with a great period aesthetic. What elevated it from greatness was its starkly bleak reveal that Ares does not start man’s wars, but he merely gives humans ideas for how to instigate them. Ultimately, it is Man who holds responsibility for our own destruction, and despite this Wonder Woman still chooses to help us poor creatures. Cool themes, cool hero, cool movie.

Wonder Woman 1984 shares the main character from its 2017 forerunner, as well as its dedication to recreating a particular period aesthetic (here the 1980s), but the brilliant writing from the first film is gone. The main themes are essentially… “be careful what you wish for” and “winners never cheat; cheaters never win.” Not the most grand and interesting follow-up to the prior film’s genuine insight into human nature.

But that’s OK. I’m really not sure why this movie is getting so much flak online. If DC’s recent prior history with filmmaking should have taught us anything, it’s that 2017’s Wonder Woman was a fluke. Remember that this is the same studio that brought us the outstanding climax to Batman vs. Superman where one grown man learns that another grown man’s mother is also named Martha. Oh, and did we all just forget that Justice League is one of the worst movies we have all collectively ever seen?

So let’s not be too hard on WW84 for not meeting the quality of 2017’s Wonder Woman. Few comic book movies can. In the more fair comparison to other movies in the DCEU, it sits below Shazam! and Aquaman, and just a smidge below Birds of Prey, but certainly above Suicide Squad, and then literally leaps and bounds over every other movie they’ve made.

Let’s start with the good. Honestly, despite my gripes about the themes of the movie not being very profound, I found the story to be interesting. The movie centers around Diana Prince (Gal Gadot in her role as an archaeologist for the Smithsonian and not as Wonder Woman) stumbling upon an ancient stone whose inscription invites people who hold the stone to make a wish. No one takes it really seriously at first, so two people make wishes without thinking they could come true. The first person is Diana herself who wishes to bring her boyfriend (whom she only knew for about a week, mind you) from the dead. As a reminder from the first film, her boyfriend Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) had died nearly 70 years prior to the start of this film in a dramatic, sacrificial, world-saving act. Apparently, Diana hasn’t moved on at all from the 1910s and still considers her short-time lover to be her forever lover. She’s not really a human and did not grow up a human, so I think we can forgive her for not moving on… but it is weird to imagine that Diana somehow works at the Smithsonian (without going to college? Or did she?) without developing any friends or interest in life. Wouldn’t she have moved on... like a little bit?

Anyways, she wants her boyfriend back, and that’s wish #1. Wish #2 comes from new character Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig… who I am shocked to find is 47 years old! She looks fantastic and far younger in this film). Were Barbara a man, the way she is treated by her colleagues would put them in the stereotypical role of a future school shooter. Barbara is a brilliant gemologist for the Smithsonian, but goes completely unrecognized for her brilliance. She is shy and unconfident, and subsequently people frequently forget that they have even met her. Add on to that the fact that she has to work in the same office as Wonder Woman, and her loneliness and subjective feelings of unattractiveness increase as male employees drool over Diana while they ignore and mock Barbara. Therefore, we would forgive her for having a chip on her shoulder. Yet, for all this, Wiig avoids playing her as an angry, emo goth. Barbara kinda has this air about her of “Well, this is just how life is, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.” Given the character’s lack of self-confidence and lack of social grace, it at times seemed like Wiig was just reprising her old SNL character, Penelope, the socially awkward one-upper. But that’s not fair to her character. Wiig portrays Barbara with an earnest goodness to her. She’s one of those people who when allowed to talk one-on-one proves to be more eloquent and interesting than you could have imagine. Far from being angrily envious of Diana’s confidence and beauty, she’s more sadly jealous. Naturally, then, she wishes on the stone to be more like Diana… unaware that this wish might have some unintended benefits.

But then, there’s a third key character to the film (and a third wishmaker), the main villain Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal). I cannot tell you if this was a good character or not… and I cannot tell you whether the imperfections of the character are more due to the film’s writing or Pascal’s performance. Lord is another loser, and like Barbara, his “loser” status is the result of being a victim of America’s prejudicial attitudes. But whereas Barbara fell victim to sexism, Lord falls victim to racism. Hispanic in origin, Lord grew up in America with an abusive father at home and racist classmates at school. Beaten down from an early age, all he wants in life is to make a name for himself, to prove he’s not a loser. In a clever twist, Lord (the person who originally ordered the wish stone to come to America before it was confiscated by the FBI and sent to the Smithsonian for analysis) does not simply use the stone to wish for riches and power… he wishes to BECOME the stone. That way, he can get nearly infinite wishes so long as he can con the people around him to wish things for him.

The scenes of Max Lord as a flawed human who just wants to not be a loser show Pascal giving a great performance as a human being at the ends of desperation. The scenes of Max Lord the supervillain are… not good. In a long string of over-the-top, eccentric, hyperconfident supervillains in countless superhero movies, Pascal’s Lord is just not interesting. In fact, he is literally a weak character. He cannot fight for himself as his body is crumbling (a side effect of wishing to become a stone). Furthermore, his initially grounded motivations to finally be respected and successful seem to be just utterly lost by the end of the film when he just wishes for world chaos… only then to turn around and declare undying love for his son. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Failure to understand a character’s motivations casts a shadow over Barbara’s character arc as well. It is explained that the wish stone takes something in return for granting someone their wish. So as payment for bringing Steve Trevor back to life, Diana loses some of her strength. Still… this strains to fully explain why Barbara, after gaining Wonder Woman-like strength, turns into a walking humanoid cheetah (complete with bad CGI like she walked straight out of the cast of 2019’s Cats.) Like I get that she lost some of her humanity and morality in exchange for strength… but Cheetah girl seems like a little much. And though initially it is fun to see Wiig get to play Barbara as a confident and sexy woman who fights back against the patriarchy, the movie (I think) unfairly pushes her into the villain role. In my opinion, she should be treated as a tragic character, something akin to a Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, as her villainous tendencies are not really her fault. She literally had the part of her that cares about other humans taken away from her when she naively and innocently wished to be like Diana. Instead, the movie has Diana lecture her that she shouldn’t be so evil. She literally can’t, lady! Stop being so hard on her! In any case, it seems like a failed opportunity to generate sympathy for a genuinely likable character who tragically becomes a villain not through her own accord.

That failure to create genuine emotions extends to Diana’s story as well. As soon as Steve is resurrected, you know by the movie’s end he will be dead again. There’s no other way this movie ends. Yet, the fact that Diana is so stubborn in refusing to give up Steve makes it hard to sympathize with her. She is simply being selfish, making her eventual decision to say goodbye to Steve feel more like her finally doing the right (and obvious) thing, and not some heartbreaking decision. Also the fact that seemingly Diana hasn’t even tried to move on in the last seventy years doesn’t help matters for me: it more just feels like a lazy way to write in Chris Pine’s popular character into the second movie. The move certainly weakens the idea of Diana as a strong, independent woman by making her emotionally stunted and crippled for the last 70 years. It would have been a much more satisfying (and daring) choice if Diana had moved on from Steve emotionally and had to deal with the guilt of having brought him back by accident, particularly if he didn’t want to go back to being dead. Instead... Steve knows he has to go back and Diana feels no guilt keeping him around. It’s weak character writing.

These poor choices I contrast with two of my favorite TV shows that demonstrate perfectly how former lovers who miraculously reunite eventually have to say goodbye for good: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jane the Virgin. For risk of spoilers to those still watching Jane, I’ll stick to the Buffy example. There’s an episode of Buffy (though technically an episode of the spin-off show Angel) where Buffy and her vampire lover Angel are fresh off their recent and tumultuous break-up, but through some dark magic that neither seeks out, they are given the opportunity to live a life where Angel isn’t actually a vampire and their love can be fully expressed. Yet, in the end, Angel opts to give up his life as a human and return to being a vampire. The choice is so moving precisely because (due to circumstances I cannot begin to explain) in choosing to give up his life with Buffy, he saves her life as well. Whereas in this movie, Diana choosing to let Steve go is really just her choosing to undo her choice to essentially cheat death. Angel, however, is actively choosing to give up a life of happiness he never wished for but was just given on a silver platter, and will now live in a world where his lover will never know his selfless act and will go on hating him. It’s heartbreaking in a way Wonder Woman dreams it could be.

And not to get too Buffy-heavy… but that show also deals with the emotional consequences of being ripped out of the afterlife much better than this movie. Steve just kinda unrealistically adapts to being alive again in all of five minutes. If, perhaps, from the start he questioned why he was there and hinted to Diana that something was wrong, the emotional aspect of this story, the doomed nature, the feeling of “this is the last chance we’ll have together” could have made this a stronger movie. I wanted to find myself crying when Diana finally says bye to Steve, and I was no where close to that. Gal Gadot shares at least part of the blame. She’s a pretty wooden actress. It’s something I noticed in 2017’s Wonder Woman, but in that movie she was supposed to be a fish out of water so her stilted presence seemed appropriate. Here, where she’s supposedly become an assimilated American for 70 years… it is just bad acting.

Anyways, another aspect of this film that was lacking were the visuals. The bad CGI of Barbara as Cheetah is just scratching the surface here. The opening flashback to Diana as a girl performing in the Amazonian Olympics just… looks fake. I don’t know. The reliance on CGI over practical effects is clear and distracting. It’s only worse in the subsequent scene where Wonder Woman stops a theft from occurring in a mall. The effects are just bad. Like passable for a film in the 1990s or early 2000s. But for a 2020 blockbuster, it’s noticeably bad. And already the scene where Wonder Woman is running towards the camera with a weird green screen behind her seems to have become a meme given just how weird it looks.

And yet, for all the negatives I’ve listed, this is a decent action flick. There’s even some nice set pieces like the one in the White House. As little as I liked Max Lord as a supervillain, I found figuring out the other half of each of his various Monkey Paw wishes (i.e. the downside of each wish) to be clever. unfortunately, each of the main three characters fails to have a story line that takes full advantage of their emotional potential, or they are just poorly acted. With few exceptions, the film eschews “fun” in favor of “seriousness.” Really the only exception is, as in the first film, the chemistry between Pine and Gadot. Their chemistry makes for some of the movie’s best moments, like when Wonder Woman makes the plane they’re flying in invisible and the pair flies over fireworks on the fourth of July. But that sense of whimsy in their scenes is largely absent from the rest of the film. This is particularly true of the action sequences, especially those at the climax. The seriousness makes them rather boring. Really, I’m comparing these action scenes with the last half hour or so of Birds of Prey which really set the bar for superhero movie fight choreography. So in the end, it’s overall an OK movie. It certainly isn’t as bad as others make it out to be, but I cannot believe I’m saying this… in 2020 if you’re in the mood for a fun superhero movie, you’re better off with the Suicide Squad sequel than the Wonder Woman sequel.

**/ (Two and a half stars out of 4)

[tydy-the-megnet]

The Prince's Cat

Insp.

...

"Another day, another failure, eh Chloe?" Alya laughed at the ruffled demeanor of the Lady Chloe. Her handmaiden Sabrina was diligently working away at her, trying to straighten her up as they rode by wagon to Chloe's estate.

Another failure indeed, it seemed to Alya. But one thing Alya both admired and loathed about Chloe was her unwavering determination to be wed to Adrien Agreste, a prince famous for his good beauty and infamous for his ill humor.

"Quiet, you." The blonde lady said, "I'll catch that infernal cat someday."

The cat in question was, of course, Chat Noir, one of the most infamous cats in all of Paris. The small black cat was rumored to be the companion of Prince Adrien, a man after whom many young maidens longed.

Young maidens such as Alya's best friend, Marinette, and their arch nemesis, Lady Chloe.

The cat was infamous for that reason. Hanging from his feline neck was a key. Not a real key; actually, the diminutive beast wore a bell that jingled merrily whenever he gave potential brides the runaround. And give them the runaround he did.

The rule was unofficial but no less rigid, and it was told as follows: "Only the fairest Lady, capable in mind and body enough to retrieve the bell hung around Chat Noir's neck and let its ring announce her love for the prince would be considered the Prince's Bride."

No one knew how the rule came to be, only that one day the prince's appointed knight, Sir Lahiffe, had brought it to their attention. When Adrien himself acknowledged the absurd rule, women from all over Paris clamored over themselves at a chance to be wed to the most eligible Parisian bachelor.

But the agile critter was far too evasive to be caught by any hand. And each attempt inevitably ended in failure. Some women have up, trying to dissuade the rumors by insisting it wasn't really Adrien's cat (the two had never even been seen in the same place, and what prince would let an apparently beloved companion roam about the streets of Paris?) While some would try taking other cats with other bells to the prince's abode (really, how can he tell them apart? They're all the same, right?), but none of their plots and schemes ever succeeded and it became truly evident that the only way to court Adrien was by getting a little golden bell from a little black cat.

"I still think you should give it a shot yourself, Marinette. Your pretty quick on your feet."

A humble baker's daughter and Alya's best friend, Marinette had confided her own desire for Adrien many times for as long as they'd known one another.

"Yeah, when I'm not tripping on air or spilling batter over myself."

Despite all of Alya's enthusiastic encouragement, Marinette never vied for the cat's bell.

Alya insisted that Marinette had as much chance as any other spry woman, but Marinette would simply reply, "Perhaps I'll call after that bard instead." Alya didnt understand why she would settle.

But at night, when the city of Paris grew quiet and serene, and Marinette family's shop slept like any other, Marinette climbed out onto her roof with a bowl of cream and scraps of meat, awaiting her own nighttime caller.

Faithfully, a sly black cat padded up to the girl from the northern corner, where it no doubt climbed the sycamore tree that grew there. And just as it always did, the cat leaned its furry head down to lap up the cream and take the scraps from her hand. His meal ended with Marinette gently petting him as he ate silently, and when the food was gone the cat slunk to Marinette's side.

He never touched her, save the occasional licks to her hands, but he would always sit calmly by her side. Still as a statue, silently offering her the golden bell that hung from his neck.

Yet Marinette, in her own self-doubt over, never took it.

"Why do you do this?" Marinette asked one chilly night as she sat upon her roof with her feline friend, "Why do come to me, when they're are plenty of ladies who have far more to offer than I?"

"Because they don't offer," came the unexpected reply.

With a a rather doggish howl, Marinette leapt to her feet -- and nearly went tumbling down the shingles as she did -- only to look around and see no one.

No one but the small tom cat with a cheshire grin and shining green eyes.

"Did," Marinette brought her hand to rest over her heart as she curiously inquired, "Did you just speak to me?"

"Meow." The cat said. And Marinette started to settle down again, ready to believe she'd imagined the whole thing. But then she realized that the sly creature had not mowed, it had said the word 'meow.' As if it were a human trying to speak like a cat.

How peculiar, she thought.

"So you can speak, then?" She supposed it wasn't the weirdest thing. She would almost expect a talking cat to be rather rare and valuable, but she would equally expect a prince to have such a rare and valuable cat she supposed. "Why are you only speaking now?"

"Well," began he, "You've never really spoken to me before. Not in a way that required more than a pleasant ear."

She thought back to all the times she had spent with the animal. From the first time the cat had shown up -- she had been upset from an incident with a painter and the noble thing had offered her silent comfort -- she had never really held a conversation with it. She always chose to either ramble about her day, or her family, or herself... or Prince Adrien.

A luminescent fluster worked its way onto Marinette's cheeks, "Well, I hadn't known you could you could offer it, you manipulative minx."

"Ah, M'Lady," the cat purred, adopting a sly look as it trudged forward to lick at her hands, "You wouldn't want to insult me, would you? What about your Sweet Prince?"

Under the moonlight and through a cat's eyes, the maiden's blush seemed all the brighter.

"You'd better not tell him any of this, or else I won't have any dinner for you next time."

"Very well, M'Lady. Though, if you'd be so kind as to answer one question I've had since the first time you've mentioned him?"

She sighed, "Very well, one question."

"If you truly love Adrien as you say you do, why do you not take my bell?"

The girl stared at Chat Noir, who gave her a very slow, leisurely blink as he patiently waited for her response.

"Cats are very curious creatures, you know."

So Marinette told the cat of what she admired of Adrien, from his fencing skill to his gentle demeanor to his noble attitude, and Chat Noir listened silently, slouching beside her.

And as she finished, she added, "But I? I am a simple baker's daughter. I've nothing to offer him just as I've nothing to offer you."

"You offer me a sweet meal every night." He said simply.

Marinette laughed, "Yes! I'll offer dowry of cream and beef! That will surely be worthy of the king's only son."

"The king cares not much for Adrien," the beast said sadly, slouching further onto the roof tiles, "And he cares not much for his bride, either. Only that he finds one."

Marinette bit her lip, empathy bringing tears to her own eyes, "But I won't be enough for him. I'm clumsy and plain and--"

"Marinette," came the cat's voice, interrupting her. He stood proudly and swaggered to her front, his bell tinkling softly, "Take my bell. I assure you, I believe you're far more deserving than you make yourself out to be.

"You're kind, clever, and beautiful. You never once tried to chase me like those ruffians, instead you befriended me. You gave me food, and let me stay here with you, even bringing me blankets in the winter or cool water in the summer. If you would do all of this for a simple cat, I'm sure whatever you'd do for Adrien would be far more enchanting. And I know he would do just as much for you, if you'd let him."

The cheshire grin was back, "Verily, M'Lady, I think you're purrfect."

The maiden blinked, the shimmering tears receding for a moment, "Was... did you just tell a pun?"

"Yes. I rather claw-ver one, too."

Something clicked in Marinette's head, "Oh, Adrien's humor is just as dreadful as yours, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid Adrien rarely goes this long without making a joke." Chat Noir chuckled when Marinette hung her head with a dramatic sigh, "But you love him anyway, don't you M'Lady?"

And with he resigned nod, Chat Noir padded to her lap. "Please take the bell and be Adrien's bride."

Hesitantly, Marinette took the ornament from his neck, and Chat Noir slinked back to admire her.

She stared at it, her doubts not abating. "What if he disagrees with you?"

"Impawsible." He replied.

"Are you so sure?"

Then Marinette gasped as, right before her eyes, the prince's cat leaned up, kneeling on hind legs that shouldn't have bent that way. The small, slinky body grew, the cat's shining green eyes never leaving her own deep blue ones. Slick fur gave way to silk, and paws gave way to hands. The face changed, shifting and shifting until the remarkably human face of Prince Adrien Agreste of France was there, kneeling before the humble baker's daughter.

"My Lady," he spoke with conviction, his deeper human voice sending chills down her spine, "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

[angstmongertina]

Reunion (BoL&S)

I love writing sibling dynamics so much and oh my GOD I love Adrina.

This was meant to just be a shippy thing but it got serious somewhere towards the middle. And a bit out of control in general lol.

AO3 Link

He had barely set foot inside his former quarters after showing his… companions to their guest rooms before Adrina pounced on him, a smile bubbling on her lips.

“So…”

Tyril sighed, though if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely surprised; his sister had always been far too keen on knowing the intricacies of his life, social and otherwise, and while that, in some ways, made her far more suited to the political dance that was Undermount society than he was, it also meant she was far too perceptive for her own good, or at least for his.

Then again, he had also deprived her of a year of such observations, and, if the state of his family’s estate, as well as its lack of servants, was any indication, it had been a trying year, during which time he had abandoned her to aid their father with minimizing the damage of his own folly. No, he had earned it, through his own actions, and he owed it to her for all she had done in the meantime.

Still, that did not mean he would make it easy for her, or dare show any sign of his resolution for fear of her pressing the advantage. Instead, he scowled. “So what?”

His disapproval had never had any effect on her, a fact that a year apart apparently had done nothing to change. She tilted her head, observing him with a gaze that vaguely made him feel as though she were seeing straight through him.

“So… Tell me about her!”

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know who I’m talking about! Csilla! Your… girlfriend?”

“Naturally. I return back to Undermount with a multitude of friends but why would you ask about anyone else?” He crossed his arms, willing himself to stay impassive despite her choice of words. “What about her?”

“If you genuinely think your attitude will get me to stop, you’ve clearly been away from home for too long.”

He sighed again. “Apparently so.”

“And…?”

“And what?”

His lips twitched as she scowled, suddenly looking much more like the younger sister he remembered from their childhood rather than the capable young woman she had become. “And tell me everything! How did you two meet? What is she like? Are you two really together?”

Taking the bait in spite of himself, he raised an eyebrow. “I believe you already asked her that last one.”

“Yes but I want to know what you think.” She grinned. “Besides, it’s much less weird to grill you for the details, especially on how you two even managed to get together, considering how stuffy and serious you are even at the best of times.”

The sound that escaped his mouth could only be called a groan, to which her eyes lit up. “Fine, but one question at a time.”

To his surprise, the sound that greeted his statement was silence for several heartbeats, before she smiled, an oddly warm expression replacing her typical teasing. “All right. What do you like most about her?”

Taken aback, he blinked. “I… was not expecting that to be the first thing you asked.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I have plenty of other questions too, but this seems the most important.”

At that, he couldn’t help but offer her a genuine smile. He had always known that he had grown up in a society where utility and consequence were the most important aspects of any interaction, but it was another thing entirely to realize just how ingrained it was in his view of the world, and how antithetical it was to everything he had witnessed in Morella, that her simple inquiry took him by surprise.

That, however, did not make the question any easier to answer, particularly when Adrina was studying him with that full intensity of hers. He cleared his throat, willing his face to remain neutral. “She… is determined.”

He was not entirely surprised when his answer earned him an eyeroll of epic proportions. “Of course she is, if she can somehow convince you to be affectionate. I have no doubt I can go ahead and add patient and forgiving to the list as well, knowing you.”

“I don’t know. I suppose… I don’t know if it’s because she was not raised in Undermount but she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.” He paused, relaxing in spite of himself as he remembered those quiet nights and warm conversations of the past weeks, despite everything that had seemed to have gone wrong, despite the heavy weight of the world upon their shoulders. “I feel… comfortable around her. Like I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge me.” He shrugged, glancing away. “I suppose I feel like I can trust her, which is a rare feeling.”

He was turning red in the face, he was sure of it, but for once, Adrina had no quip prepared, no joke at his expense. Instead, she smiled, slow and warm. “That’s good. You might have thought you managed to hide it, but you’ve always been closed off to everyone, other than…” She cleared her throat, pointedly looking away as he shifted, and he looked down to find his hand clenched into a fist at his side. “Well, at any rate, I’m glad you found someone to support you. We, father and I, feared the worst when we didn’t hear back from you.”

Her expression was earnest and he looked away, finding himself strangely unable to meet her gaze. “I apologize. I… had much on my mind but I know now that I was also a coward to run away like I did.”

For a moment, the room was quiet other than his breathing, harsh in the silence, and the weight of his own confession hanging between them.

When Adrina spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “Tyril? What actually happened? Father said you only told him that you lost a duel.”

He sighed heavily. “That I did.”

“But… You lost? How?”

Drawing a deep breath, he sat himself down on the edge of his bed, sweeping his gaze across the once-familiar room. Everything was as he had left it, that night he had returned from the Ancestral Masquerade, battered, bruised, and heartsick. It was easy, too easy, to remember looting through it all, blinded by grief and shame and, underneath it all, terror at what had befallen his only friend, at what would befall House Starfury. Even with his absence, with their fall from grace, not an item had been touched, left as he had last seen it, and he sighed again, brushing a finger over the wooden bedpost.

“How much do you know?”

“I know… I know that you came home from the masquerade and immediately left again without telling Father anything other than the fact that you lost a duel.” He flinched, but there was no judgment in her voice. “I know that your friend—former friend?—Kaya beat you soundly and won prestige for her house, that she has been acting… different than I remember from before she left, and that House Duskraven is now House Ascendant. And I also know that you were easily the best duellist in all of Undermount. So what actually happened?”

He sighed again, feeling the words stick in his throat, almost seeming to burn his tongue. “The Shadow Court.”

“What? You were serious?”

“Did you think that I was joking?”

Her expression turned sheepish. “Maybe? Though I should have known better; you rarely joke about anything. Perhaps it was more wishful thinking on my part.”

“I would not make light about Kaya.”

The smile she offered him was small, placating, and similar enough to ones from their childhood that he almost, almost, smiled back. “I know. It is just a… disconcerting thought, that the House Ascendent might be led by someone possessed by the Shadow Court. That does not bode well for Undermount.”

“No, it does not.”

“But… Are you absolutely sure that it is not some manifestation of her own ambition?” He opened his mouth to cut her off but he could do so, she held up a hand, and he forced himself to hold his tongue. “I know she was your dearest friend, but… There is no harm in being overly cautious.”

“I know who she used to be. She could not have deceived me.”

For a second, she met his gaze, eyes careful, scrutinous, as though weighing his curt words, and then she nodded and a warmth of affection flooded his chest.

“The Shadow Court, then. So they made her… what? Stronger so she could defeat you? How did they even get to her?”

“Technically, she went looking for more information about them. She thought there was more to the story about how they were sealed away, but…”

“She found more than she bargained for.”

At that, he sighed. “I do not know what their end goal is with Undermount. I do know that they made her much stronger and faster, and they may have to others as well.”

“And her cunning and ambition? She has taken over contracts and council sway, finding the most vulnerable points of each house and exploiting them to her own gain with all the precision of a surgeon.”

He hesitated. “I do not know. The Kaya I know is kind and humble, but clever too. It is possible that they did not need to change anything except for her morality… all of this. But the changes had to have started before her return. I should have noticed, should have found a way to have prevented all of this. I cannot ask for yours and Father’s forgiveness enough. But I will fix this. I promise.”

Her sigh was almost exasperated. “You need not do this alone. This is not just your fight.”

Despite the gravity of their discussion, the weight of his failure and its consequences, he could not help but smile, much to her apparent surprise. “I am quite aware. Csilla has informed me as such as well. Multiple times.”

When Adrina raised a single eyebrow, he shook his head, fighting in vain against the heat rising in his cheeks. “No, she has her own stake in stopping the Shadow Court. They have taken someone dear to her as well.”

“And does she know about Kaya?”

“She does. She knows that is what lead me out of Undermount in the first place.”

“No, I don’t mean like that.” That time, her sigh was lighter, amused. “Never mind. Speaking of which, however, have you had a chance to see…?”

“Yes.” The word felt heavy on his tongue, and yet somehow freeing as well, as though acknowledging it alone had taken off a burden from his shoulders. “We saw her just before coming here, at the shrine. She apparently wished to hand-deliver an invitation to this year’s masquerade.” He cast a keen eye over his sister. “You are not surprised.”

“No. Recently, she had taken to haunting our gardens more than she has any reason to, almost as if she has been awaiting your return to gloat some more.” She made a face, muttering something no doubt highly uncomplimentary under her breath. “It was beginning to get quite annoying, to be honest.”

He chuckled, nearly missing the sharp look she directed at him. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. You wouldn’t give me that look unless something was wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Adrina.”

She shook her head, a faint smile on her lips. “Truthfully. There’s nothing wrong, per se. I just… am surprised, that’s all. You’re not the same as the person who left Undermount after last year’s masquerade.”

“I should hope not.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can I be sincere without you deflecting it for once?”

“I believe that is usually my role.” When she scowled, he gestured expansively towards her, earning him a genuine, if reluctant, laugh. “Very well, then. Go on.”

“Thank you, I…” She paused, her expression souring once more. “Well, all of that just ruined the mood, now, didn’t it?”

“For you, perhaps.”

At that, she snorted. “Yes, yes, I get it. I won’t draw out embarrassing you with all of this talk of emotions any longer. Though didn’t Csilla call you sensitive earlier? And I can’t even talk to you without you getting all embarrassed.”

He coughed, clearing his throat. “She’s… special.” Hesitating, he opened his mouth, but after a moment, closed it again. It would only give her more ammunition, and the prospects of going back to normal were still far out, too far to consider.

Still, she seemed to read his mind, her expression soft as she threw her arms around him for a sudden, tight embrace. “I like her, brother. I’m glad she brought you home”

He couldn’t help but smile as he hugged her back. “Me as well, Adrina. Me as well.”

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 8 Review

Consistent yet lackluster, this is a good episode that doesn’t really stand out.

The title sequence for Nappa's Best Day Ever should've started after Cadaverrific! which I think is a wonderful bit of black humor. But the following scene just felt like another "ha ha bulma is a loose woman" joke. This scene might've been funnier with better voice acting. I wouldn't say the scene did nothing for me, but it did very little.

Also “Mr Kent” - Is that a Superman reference or am I taking crazy pills?

[Title Sequence]

With Yamcha gone, the mantle of series buttmonkey falls to Krillin. He has his big damn hero moment, when he Limit Breaks the stuffing out of three Saibamen, but it's frankly disregarded in favor of Piccolo using a god damned mouth-laser to annihilate the last one.

With no more Saibamen left to toy with, it falls upon the two Saiyans to get their hands dirty. Or rather, for Nappa to get his hands dirty while Vegeta sits back and watches. Nappa is no less full of whipshot non-sequiturs in this episode than he was in the previous. After some banter about teaching the Z Fighters a lesson, he gives new meaning to the word "punchline" and amputates Tien's arm.

Compared to a lot of other voice actors, Ganxingba (Tien) actually does a decent scream here. Most of the other screams so far have either been laid on too thick, or done way too close so it peaks their potato microphones, or it’s just super disingenuous. But right here, Tien’s scream is actually really convincing and doesn’t make me feel like someone is stabbing knives into my ears.

The quiet breeze after Vegeta makes a corny pun (Looks like he's been... disarmed!) sells the joke. Nappa’s follow-up seems more like an in-character necessity for him than it seems like a part of the joke.

Ever apparent that fighting Nappa would be completely beyond their capabilities, Chiaotzu decides to blow himself up and take Nappa with him.

"You can just wish me back with the Dragon Balls!" "We already wished you back with the Dragon Balls! We can't do it twice!" "...Wait, wha--?"

KABOOM. Okay, that got a chuckle out of me. This is also the first time the respawn limit of the Dragon Balls has been mentioned. Simply put, everybody gets one.

Krillin's comment on Chiaotzu's death is really bland and lazily written, but prompts a little more character insight to Tien.

"I loved him." "As a memorial to Yamcha... Gay."

I didn't like it when Yamcha first said it, but being referenced in this macabre fashion does something for me. I won't claim it's clever or witty but I personally find it funny.

Nappa then reveals that Chiaotzu's sacrifice had absolutely no effect on him, which naturally enrages Tien. He goes on to get the stuffing knocked out of him, and Gohan ponders if they should help him instead of just standing around.

Piccolo explains that Tien is in a battle to honor his friend’s death, and he wouldn’t dare besmirch the man’s pride by interrupting his heroic last stand. 

This immediately cuts to Tien screaming for help.

I can't tell if the smirk when Piccolo says "Like a hero" is a visual edit or actually existed in the source material, but it's use here is amazing. The look on his face makes him seem like a sadist who's enjoying this, and that's honestly not too far off from how Piccolo has been depicted so far. He's the Demon King who wants to take over the world and couldn't care less about these humans.

After being reprimanded by Gohan, Piccolo and Krillin finally get the lead out and agree to team up against Nappa. They get some surprise slaps on him, and Piccolo yells for Gohan to shoot him with everything he's got before he has time to DODGE.

This triggers a Pavlovian response and Gohan immediately runs for cover, which means Piccolo and Krillin are just going to have to fight Nappa the old fashioned way: By using the Kagebunshin no Jutsu.

"I can't... believe it."

The Naruto skit is creative and risable in its own right but not exactly gut-busting. What's a whole lot funnier is the notion that Nappa's incredible mental discipline is derived entirely from him playing "Patty Cake, Patty Cake" in his head.

Each of Krillin's shadow clones gets their own notch on the owned counter, bringing the score up to 7.

Nappa then commends their effort and tells them, hey at least you didn't kill yourself using a single useless attack, like Chiaotzu did. Tien then proceeds to do that exact same thing: He fires a Kikoho at Nappa and then dies.

It's given a bit more cause for worry in the original show, where Vegeta states that it very well could have killed Nappa if he didn't guard against it at the last second, but in this series he's given no such credit. Nappa just laughs and says "Pointless."

Just before he goes in for the kill on Krillin, he's stopped mid-air by a stunning realization. He can fly. Vegeta is too flabbergasted to argue this and simply agrees.

After pitching a fit about wanting Goku to watch him murder the Z Fighters, Vegeta obliges Nappa and agrees to wait three hours for Goku to arrive.

I half-expected, half-wanted them to make a fake girlfriend reference with Goku here.

Vegeta - "So this friend of yours, that you SAY is coming, is somehow stronger than all of you combined, yet didn't show up here to fight us, and you're only just now telling us this after two of your friends have died?"

Krillin - "You wouldn't know him, he goes to a different school."

Thirty seconds into their three hour wait time, Nappa starts up the "Is he here yet?" bit. Vegeta shoos him off and tells him to go have fun and occupy himself in any way he sees fit.

This begins a well-timed, well-edited musical number of Nappa systematically dismantling the naval and air forces of what I assume is the World Government.

And this whole time while Nappa is enjoying himself to the sounds of musical splendor, crashing metal, and explosions, Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan are just standing still in a morosely quiet semi-circle. For the entire three hours I'm guessing. Vegeta's scouter alarm goes off, which means time is up and they're all going to die. Nappa suddenly returns without his shirt and elbows Piccolo in the head so hard it changes the color of the sky from blue to pink.

Not the most clean or graceful cutaway scene, but it sells itself regardless. The stinger is a stronger finish than it had any right to be, as a callback and apparent closure to the most esoteric joke in this series. RIP Whales.

Conclusion

This was a plateau of an episode. Whereas the last episode had constant peaks and kept your interest, this one was steady and consistent throughout in a less remarkable way. Most of the factors that go into making or breaking an episode seemed to have hit a comfortable resting point. That or I've just finally become numb to the questionable microphone quality.

I feel like this episode almost lands in the twilight zone of "It's bad, so let me reach to say something positive about it" and "It's good, so let me reach to say something negative about it." that just coalesces into me not having much of anything to say about it. I’m uncertain whether or not this constitutes a failure on my part as a critic, or if this episode really is just that comparatively monotonous.

The word mediocre is often used to mean bad or poor, which I don't feel fits this episode, but it certainly isn't a stand out. I really couldn't find much worthy of discussion here beyond face value.

The few jokes that struck me personally stop me from calling this episode boring, but I found myself repeatedly checking the time to see how much I still had left to watch. It had jokes that were definitely funny, but nothing here really kept my attention. Other lackluster episodes, even if they were not worth a rewatch, kept my interest because I'd latch onto things that were obvious and apparent as being poorly done. This one offered very little variance between the lowest it went and the peak its comedy or production.

If anything, this episode is saved from a lower score by its tail end. Nappa's patty cake joke and the eponymous "best day ever" scene really make up the majority of this episodes hard-hitting humor for me.

But it is important to note that this is still a good episode. It’s not a laugh riot episode and it’s probably not in anyone’s Top 5, but it’s a very comfortable middle ground between the worst this season has to offer and the very peaks.

As an important side note, I feel like we're just now encroaching upon what might be Nappa fatigue. I maintain my position that Nappa has yet to have a “do nothing” joke - all of his humor has been in a hit in some capacity - but it feels almost par for the course at this point. Nappa is definitely not overdone in this episode and he in fact caries it, but I feel like another episode of this style would tread tightly upon the expiration date of how much zaniness you can come to expect before it starts to feel samey. Nappa is in danger here of simply becoming too saturated within the show’s focus and would lose his simplistic, unique appeal that's the driving force behind his characterization. Which is well-timed because we all know what happens next episode...

While I don’t think this episode stands out as a whole, it definitely has some strongly quotable moments. Yeah, yeah, most of what Nappa said. But a series of hilariously derailing one-liners does not make for something remarkable on the whole, which to me just feels expected, stagnant and safe. The peaks are not enough to pull this episode further up, but I must say I’m still not fully confident in my assessment. This was definitely a weird episode to judge.

Score: 67

Passing Thoughts

“What the hell could someone like you possibly major in?” “Child psychology.” “Wow, that sounds really interesting.” “WITH A MINOR IN PAIN!”

"Nappa here is worth 5 Raditz, and I am worth 15 Raditz!" - Vegeta Accurate to the canon power levels!

Oolong saying "Get back to the fight!" sounds absolutely nothing like Oolong. In fact, Episode 1 Oolong sounds more like Oolong than this short cameo did.

"Dick move, guys."

"Good effort, but I'm the patty cake champion."

[dillydedalus]

what i read in july

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT aka i’m finally out of the (relative) reading slump for good & my bro james joyce was there

men explain things to me, rebecca solnit the original mansplaining essay is great, and still scarily relevant; the others in this collection (most on feminist issues) are also quite good; some aspects are a bit dated & problematic so be aware of that. 2.5/5

erschlagt die armen!, shumona sinha (tr. from french, not available in english) short but very impactful novella about a young french woman, originally from india, who works as an interpreter in the asylum system and becomes more & more broken by this system of inhumane bureaucracy and suffering, until she snaps and hits a migrant over the head with a wine bottle. full of alienation and misery and beautiful but disturbing language - the title translates to ‘beat the poor to death’ so like. yeah. 3.5/5

fire & blood: a history of the targaryen family I, george r r martin look, it’s a 700-page-long fake history book about a fictional ruling dynasty in a fictional world, and i’m just That Obsessed & Desperate about asoiaf (and i don’t even care about the targs That Much). anyway, now i know more about the targs than any ruling family from, you know, real history, which is like, whatever. this is pretty enjoyable if you are That Obsessed, although i will say that some bits are much better than others (there are some dry dull years even in everyone’s fav overly dramatic dragon-riding incest-loving family) and the misogyny really is. a lot. too much. way too much. BUT i did really like Good Best Queen Alysanne (her husband king joe harris is alright too i guess) and i found my new westerosi otp, cregan stark/aly blackwood, who both have Big Dick Energy off the fucking charts. 3.5/5 (+0.5 points for cregan and aly’s combined BDE)

the old drift, namwali serpell hugely ambitious sprawling postcolonial nation-building novel about zambia, told thru three generations of three families, as well as a chorus of mosquitoes (consistently the best & smartest parts). there is A LOT going on, in terms of characters, of plot points, of references to history (the zambian space programme) and literature (finally my knowledge of heart of darkness paid off) and thematically, and honestly it was a bit too much, a bit too tangled & fragmented & drifty, and in the end i probably admire this book more than i liked it, but serpell’s writing is incredibly smart and funny and full of electrical sparks 3.5/5

a severed head, iris murdoch the original love dodecahedron (not that i counted). iris murdoch is fucking WILD and i love her for it. this is a strange darkly funny little farce about some rich well-educated londoners and their bizarre & rather convoluted love lives. not as grandiosely wild as the sea the sea, but fun nevertheless. 3/5

midnight in chernobyl, adam higginbotham jumping on the hype bandwagon caused by the hbo series (very weird to call the current fascination with chernobyl a hype bandwagon but you know). interesting & well-written & accessible (tho the science is still totally beyond me) & gets you to care about the people involved. lots of human failure, lots of human greatness, set against the background of the almost eldritch threat of radioactivity (look up the elephant foot & see if you don’t get chills), and acute radiation syndrome which is THE MOST TERRIFYING THING ON EARTH . 3.5/5

normal people, sally rooney honestly this is incredibly engrossing & absorbing once you get used to how rooney completely ignores ‘show don’t tell’ (it works!), i pretty much read the whole thing in one slow workday (boss makes a dollar, i make a dime so i read books on my phone on company time, also i genuinely had nothing to do). i also think rooney is really good at precisely capturing the ~millenial experience in a way that feels very true, especially the transition from school to uni. BUT i really disliked the ending, the book never engages with the political themes it introduces (esp. class and gender) as deeply as it could and the bdsm stuff never really gets TIED UP LOL. so overall idk: 3.5/5

störfall: nachrichten eines tages, christa wolf quiet reflective undramatic little book narrated by a woman waiting to hear about the outcome of her brother’s brain surgery on the day of the catastrophe at chernobyl - throughout the day she puts down her thoughts about her brother and the events unfolding at chernobyl, as well as the double uncertainty she is trying to cope with. really interesting to read such an immediate reaction to chernobyl (the book came out less than a year after chernobyl). 2.5/5

the man in the high castle, philip k dick it was fine? quick & entertaining alternative history where the axis powers win the war, some interesting bits of worldbuilding (like the draining of the mediterranean which was apparently a real idea in the early 20th century?) but overall it’s just felt a bit disjointed & unsatisfying to me. 2.5/5

fugitive pieces, anne michaels very poetic & thoughtful novel about the holocaust, grief, remembrance & the difference between history and memory, intergenerational trauma, love, geology and the weather. i’m not sure how much this comes together as a novel, but it is absolutely beautifully written (the author is a poet as well) and very affective. 3.5/5

american innovations, rivka galchen short collection of bizarre & often funny short stories about neurotic women whose furniture flies away, or who grow an extra breast, or who are maybe too occupied with financial details. very vague & very precise at once, which seems to be the thing with these sort of collections. 3/5

fool’s assassin (fitz & the fool #1), robin hobb YAASS i’m back in the realm of the elderlings!!! i thought this was one of the weaker installments in the series - i still enjoyed it a lot, and Feelings were had, but it just doesn’t quite fit together pacing-wise & some of the characterisation struck me as off (can i get some nuance for shun & lant please?) and tbh fitz is at peak Selfcentred Dumbass Levels & it drove me up the fucking wall. molly, nettle & bee deserve better. still, completely HYPE for the rest of the trilogy. 3.5/5

JAMES JOYCE JULY

note: i decided not to read dubliners bc it’s my least fav of joyce’s major works & too bleak & repetitive for my mood right now AND while i planned not to reread finnegans wake bc……. it’s finnegans wake…. i kinda do want to read it now (but i also. really don’t.) so idk yet.

a portrait of the artist as a young man, james joyce y’all. i read this book at least once a year between the ages of 15 and 19, it’s beyond formative, it is burnt into my brain, and reading it now several years later it is still everything, soaring and searing (that searing clarity of truth, thanks burgess) and poetic and dirty, and stephen is baby, and a pretentious self-important little prick and i love him & i am him (or was him as only a pretentious self-important teenage girl reading joyce can be him - because this truly is a book that should be read in your late teens when you feel everything as intensely and world-endingly and severely as my boy stephen does and every new experience feels like the world changing). anyway i love this book & i love stephen dedalus, bird-like, hawk-like, knife-blade, aloof, alienated, severe and stern, a poet-priest-prophet if he could ever get over himself, baby baby baby. 5/5

exiles, james joyce well. there’s a reason joyce is known as a novelist. this is….. a failed experiment, maybe. a fairly boring play about an adulterous love-square and uh… love beyond morality and possession maybe??? about how much it would suck for joyce to return to ireland??? and tbh it’s not terribly interesting. 2/5

travesties, tom stoppard a wild funny irreverent & smart antic comedy inspired by the fact that during ww1, james joyce, lenin, and dadaist tristan tzara were all in neutral zurich, more or less simultaneously; they probably never met, but in this play they do, as dadaist poetry, socialist art critique, and a james joyce high on his own genius & in desperate need of some cash while writing ulysses, AND the importance of being earnest (joyce is putting on a production of it) all collide in the memories of henry carr, who played algernon & later sued joyce over money (tru facts). not my fav stoppard (that’s arcadia) but it’s funny & fizzy & smart & combines many many things that i love. 4/5 

ulysses, james joyce look i’m not really going to tell y’all anything new about ulysses, but it really has everything, it’s warm & human(e) & cerebral & difficult & funny & sad & healing & i always get a lot out of it even tho there’s bits (a lot of them) i’ll never wrap my head around. ultimate affirmation of humanity or whatever. also stephen dedalus is baby. 5/5

dedalus, chris mccabe the fact that this book (sequel to ulysses about what stephen dedalus might have done the next day) exists and was published ON MY BIRTHDAY is proof that the universe loves me. 

anyway this is very very good, very very clever, extremely good at stephen (less good at bloom but his parts are still good), engages w/ ulysses, portrait & hamlet (& others) very cleverly & does some cool meta and experimental shit. y’all it has stephen talking to a contemporary therapist about how he’s stuck in joyce’s text which is all about joyce & very little about whoever stephen is when he’s not joyce’s alter ego/affectionate but slightly amused look at younger self and ithaca is an interview w/ the author about how his relationship to his dad influenced his response to ulysses and I’M INTO IT. the oxen of the sun chapter replaces the whole ‘gestation of english prose’ w/ just slightly rewriting the first pages of about 10 novels published between ulysses and now & it does lolita w/ “bloom, thorn of stephen’s sleep, light in his eyes. his sire, his son’ and i lit. screamed. anyway i don’t want to give this 5 stars (yet) bc i think some of the experimental stuff ended up a bit gimmicky & didn’t add that much to the text but fuck. that’s my boy & i want to reread it right now. 4.5/5 ALSO it’s a crime no literary weirdo woman has written ‘a portrait of the artist’s sister’ about delia ‘dilly’ dedalus, shadow of stephen’s mind, quick far & daring, teaching herself french from a 3rd hand primer while her father drinks the nonexistent family fortune away and her older brother is getting drunk on a beach & starting fights w/ soldiers bc he’s a smartarse

[reactingtosomething]

If They Liked This, They May Also Like...

Holiday Shopping with Reacting to Something

stock photo shamelessly lifted from

We know we haven’t generated original content in a very long time, but we wanted to get into the holidays in a way that was more or less on brand. So in the spirit of a Netflix recommendation algorithm, here are some suggestions for what to buy friends and family who liked some of the movies we saw in 2018 (including a couple that premiered in late 2017).

It’s probably obvious, but just to be super clear, the format below is --

If they liked this: They may also like this

Miri’s Gift Guide

The Shape of Water: I shouldn’t say a day pass to an aquarium because it’s a terrible, easy joke BUT I AM WHO I AM.

If you’re not a garbage person, maybe consider the rest of Del Toro’s creature filmography, anything related to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. Dark and gritty originals, not the tidied up versions.

Call Me By Your Name: NO, I WILL NOT SAY ANYTHING TO DO WITH PEACHES BECAUSE EVEN I HAVE LIMITS. APPARENTLY. The book is a lovely, lyrical, tragic read (or listen, if you go with the Armie Hammer audiobook as I did), and I would also recommend giving a gift of solitary artistic pleasure in whatever way speaks to your intended recipient—a CD, a ticket to an art exhibit, a coffee table book of a painter you think they will love. Something beautiful that requires a little bit of space to enjoy privately.

Black Panther: The new Shuri comic! (I am a hypocrite because I haven’t read it yet but it looks so awesome!) Also, there are some choice funko pops for Black Panther, which are a nice, reasonable price and make a great desk or bookshelf addition.

Annihilation: A DVD of Arrival and a book on fascinating genetic mutations. (The photo above is from the first linked book.) Also, tell them about the Twitter account Tessa as Goats, which is a true gift to us all.

Game Night: A murder mystery game! Or whatever game you think most appeals to them, but I personally think the immersive nature of a murder mystery is a true delight. Also, something Olivia the Dog themed because she’s awesome.

A Wrinkle in Time: For the actual child: one of the books published under the Rick Riordan Presents banner.

For the child in all of us: a soothing and/or empowering adult coloring book and some nice colored pencils.

Thoroughbreds: Really cool sunglasses.

Love, Simon: Tickets to the upcoming Clea DuVall helmed queer rom com starring Kristen Stewart and YES this is a request for myself, obviously.

Blockers: Make them a dance music playlist on Spotify!! (Or burn an actual CD for peak nostalgia/those who enjoy physical media.) And if you have some time together, have your own dance party with as many or as few people as you want.

photo illustration by 

Ocean’s 8: LEVERAGE! BUY THEM A SEASON OF LEVERAGE!!! Give them the gift of even more cons and fun!

Incredibles 2: If they are parents: a night out without the children (this could mean a gift certificate or an offer to babysit). If not, try something heroic like these ornaments, or something that helps them learn to be their own hero, like a self defense or kickboxing class.

Tag: LASER TAG! It’s so fun, even if you’re bad at it! Give a gift card or book a session together and enjoy chasing each other around like giant, fun-loving idiots.

photo illustration from

Set It Up: A massage. Anyone who related to this movie too much is likely very much in need of stress relief. Also, a large quantity of popcorn to be eaten in whatever manner they wish with no shame at all.

Hotel Artemis: A Swiss army knife and a couple of airplane bottles of booze.

Sorry to Bother You: An Oaktown t-shirt (I have been told by someone from the area that this is A Thing but I don’t actually know and I’m sorry for that) and a copy of Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

Crazy Rich Asians: Ideally, a whirlwind food tour of Singapore. If that’s not feasible, a Hulu subscription so they can enjoy Constance Wu’s full comic potential in Fresh Off the Boat. And a really nice candle, because it’s a small decadence that can really go a long way.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before: The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory (if they like a steamy read), tall socks (if they like to be cozy and cute), and custom stationary (if they like to live dangerously).

A Simple Favor: A cocktail shaker, fancy bitters, a really good mystery novel.

Widows: Tickets to go see Widows again because it’s amazing and is probably even more amazing a second time.

Kris’s Recommended Reading 

Wildlife or Widows: The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

As I say in my Amazon review, this is the best applied ethics text I was never assigned. In fairness to my professors, attorney-turned-journalist Jill Filipovic hadn’t written it yet when I was a philosophy student. Filipovic is also not a philosopher. But she is a brilliant writer and a rigorous thinker, and The H-Spot is fundamentally and explicitly an Aristotelian ethical project. That is to say, it takes the starting position that political organization should be aimed at the goal of human flourishing (as opposed to, say, economic growth). From there Filipovic builds a case, or maybe it's better to say several cases, for specific ways in which American policy fails women and disproportionately women of color in this aim, and concrete ways in which it could address this failure. She does so largely through first-hand accounts of several women across America, in a wide range of socioeconomic circumstances. Although the institutions and less formal systems in play are complicated, the questions at the heart of all this are simple: What do women want? What do women need?

Filipovic asks these questions without pre-judgment, and without assuming that any answers are too unrealistic to consider. Not that anyone she talks to asks for anything "unrealistic." Partly this is because they often speak from too much experience for the unrealistic to occur to them as something they deserve to ask for, but also, the idea that woman-friendly policy is unrealistic is a Bad Take to begin with. Filipovic doesn't need to be pie-in-the-sky utopian to show how things could be much better for women (and by extension, it should but still doesn't go without saying, for everyone).

I left academic philosophy over five years ago, but I really think each chapter (built around topics like friendship, sex, parenting, and food) is brimming with potential paper topics for grad and undergrad students of ethics and/or political philosophy. Whether you’re philosophically inclined or not, if you think “women should be happy” and “the point of civilization is to make happiness easier for everyone” are uncontroversial claims, The H-Spot is the book for you -- and for your friends who loved the several underestimated women of Widows, or Carey Mulligan’s captivating portrayal in Wildlife of a woman doing the best she could within the restrictions of her era.

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Though it helps to have some familiarity with the Avengers storylines that led up to Ta-Nehisi motherfucking Coates’s first year on the Black Panther comic -- as well as with the excellent opening arc of Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man -- here’s all that even a new comics reader really needs to know before jumping into Nation: King T’Challa, the Black Panther, was recently unable to prevent several consecutive disasters in Wakanda. Both as a cause and as a result of these disasters, T’Challa worked with the so-called “Illuminati” (Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and other intellectual and strategic heavyweights) to prevent the end of the multiverse itself. That crisis averted, T’Challa has returned to Wakanda to resume his royal duties.

Coates takes as a starting premise that Wakanda, the most advanced nation on earth, would only still have a hereditary monarchy if the monarch was uniquely suited as a protector of the people. In the wake of the Panther’s failures in this regard, Nation opens with a rebellion against T’Challa’s rule on two fronts: domestic terrorists with an unknown agenda on one hand, and on the other, former officers of the Dora Milaje (the all-female royal bodyguard corps beloved by fans of the movie) rallying Wakandan women who have suffered great injustices unaddressed by the crown. The leaders of the latter, lovers Ayo and Aneka, are nominally antagonists to T’Challa, but to the reader they’re parallel protagonists. You root for both T’Challa and the Dora Milaje, even though their agendas are in tension, not unlike the way one might have rooted for both Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark in early Game of Thrones. (Shuri’s around too, though she’s quite unlike her movie counterpart.)

When he’s not fighting or investigating, T’Challa does a lot of soul-searching and debating about his responsibilities as king, the ways it conflicts with his career as a globetrotting superhero, and whether and how the government of Wakanda must evolve. Though Wakanda is too small to be considered a superpower, the domestic terror angle, an interrogation of historical injustice, and the struggle between moral idealism and political reality make Wakanda a proxy in some important ways for modern America. (You may have noticed that Ryan Coogler did this too.) Coates’s meditation on leadership and political power made A Nation Under Our Feet not only a great superhero comic but -- this is not an exaggeration or a joke -- my favorite political writing of 2016.

Nation is illustrated mostly by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse, with colors by Laura Martin; some of Stelfreeze’s designs clearly influenced the movie.

Thoroughbreds: Sweetpea

When a clever, mean-spirited would-be journalist with airhead friends learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her, old traumas bubble to the surface and she becomes a serial killer who targets sex offenders. Darkly, often cruelly hilarious, Sweetpea is what you’d get if American Psycho was set in southwestern England and for some reason starred Amy from Gone Girl. Protagonist Rhiannon is a self-described inhabitant of an Island of Unfinished Sentences, de facto Chief Listener of her “friend” circle, and a maker of lists. Lists of the things her friends talk about (babies, boyfriends, IKEA), signs she’d like to put up at work (please close doors quietly, please do not wear Crocs to work), and oh, the people she wants to kill. Like her boyfriend, at the moment. Or ISIS, when news coverage of a terror attack pre-empts her beloved MasterChef.

Author C.J. Skuse smartly chooses not to have Rhiannon wallow in her traumatic past as many superheroes do. We get glimpses for context, but Rhiannon is committed to moving forward, to escaping her demons rather than being defined by them. It matters that she wants to get better, even if she also hates that she’s bought into society’s definition of “better.” (#relatable)

It’s worth noting that Sweetpea leans seemingly uncritically into a lot of dated gender tropes, in Rhiannon’s assessments of the women around her. (Body positive she is not.) Then again, she’s an unreliable narrator -- one of the best demonstrations of this is a scene in which she’s convinced of her ability to fool the world into believing she’s normal, then overhears her dipshit co-workers talk about how unsettling she is -- so arguably we’re supposed to laugh at how terrible she is without necessarily agreeing with her. This is, I think, a perfectly legitimate approach to a protagonist, even if some find it unfashionable.

The book is not quite as thematically rich as it first appears, at least on the topic of sexual violence; it indulges a “stranger danger” picture of rape that doesn’t feel entirely contemporary. (For a more nuanced treatment of rape culture, see the sadly short-lived but wildly entertaining vigilante dramedy Sweet/Vicious.) But as a portrait of a vibrant, layered, genuinely Nasty-and-you-kinda-love-her-for-it woman -- given Oscar-caliber-portrayal-worthy life by Skuse’s wickedly sharp voice -- Sweetpea is too fun to pass up.

Upgrade or Infinity War: The Wild Storm

Castlevania showrunner Warren Ellis helped redefine superhero comics with 1999’s The Authority, which at DC’s request he's given a Gritty Reboot (along with the WildCATS, whom some of us remember from this extremely 90s cartoon) in The Wild Storm. Ellis has always been interested in The Future, both its potential wondrousness and its probable horror. Fans of Upgrade’s refreshingly unsanitized (and unsanitary) take on human enhancement through body modification will find much to like in Ellis’s spin on the trope of second-skin powered armor. (He semi-famously wrote Extremis, one of the comic arcs that inspired Iron Man 3.)

art by Jon Davis Hunt, from The Wild Storm #1

Angela Spica, a reimagining of Ellis’s old Authority character The Engineer, is a cybernetics expert who stumbles onto a sort of shadow government conspiracy related to her employer, and goes on the run with the armor she’s designed for them. (When not deployed, the armor is stored inside her body.) Angela is quickly targeted by multiple covert organizations, one of which rescues (?) her and brings her in on a secret history of technological arms races and contact with extraterrestrials. The Wild Storm is full of big action and bigger ideas, and for smart, generally curious superhero movie fans who find the decades-long continuities of the DC and Marvel universes intimidating, it’s a great entry -- with a blessedly planned ending -- into sci-fi-comics.

Happy holidays, and have fun gift shopping!

[nathaniel-g-blog]

Christianity, Suicide, Fatherhood

My experience of fatherhood can be summarized by that old saying about quarterbacks - sometimes having three is like not even having one.

I've always thought about the experience of being born in the back of a car. My first memory is someone telling me that my father was dead. I do not know who was telling or who or what was being told. I remember the absence of a form which was supposed to be present. That is how I started learning. I was in the back of what must have been my parents' car, behind the driver, the door was open. I don't know who opened it. My eyes traced each of the cracks in the parking lot below obsessively, back and forth, I think we were at church. I may have been 14 or 16 or 18 months. I cannot say exactly. I did not know what to do.

My father died, and my second memory is my father talking to me about marrying my widowed mother, asking my sister and I whether we wanted to be adopted. Of course I wanted his name; no one wants to be fatherless. I wouldn't even call him stepfather, because he was the real thing. As it turned out, he also wasn't. There was a gap. In moments of conflict, my mind would wander. What would my father have allowed if he were here? How would he have loved me? The father I did have had to wrestle with a son who had to ask these questions. He loved me and acted like a father, and he also did not know how. We both wanted him to be a real father, and I cannot say that he was anything else. He could not have been the father I thought I needed, because the gap existed not only in him but in the structure of my own relationship to fatherhood and to the world.

I started visiting the grave of my real father, the place where I knew I could find what I had lost, and where I could bring him what he had lost. I was not mourning, I did not know how. I did know (though I did not spend much time considering) that my father died with my mother and many others praying and believing for his healing, for his presence. Even after he was buried, she continued to pray and expected his imminent resurrection. I was a child and had not yet learned that hope in resurrection is no substitute for the work of mourning. I continued for some time going to his grave. The thought of heaven as bliss gave me pause. In the midst of the holy ignorance of heaven, could it mean anything good to him to know how I was living? Eventually I stopped going, because if heaven meant anything it would have to mean that he wouldn’t have to know. I got more serious about church.

There was a serious problem with me, recognized by everyone (everyone being myself and my parents) and this problem was that we did not know what to do with each other. Christianity was presented as the diagnosis and the cure. Conversations with church authorities would sometimes move to the problem of my absent father. I didn’t know what to think about him, but I learned that his death was a problem which would be solved by my acceptance of the heavenly one, who would not fail in the ways others had. Christianity gave me a diagnosis of the world, which I knew was disordered. It was disordered because it would not accept its true order, which came to it from the outside. The world chose fatherlessness, I chose adoption, not as a practice of representation but its supersession by the Spirit.

One of the stories people tell about my childhood is the time in hide and seek when I locked myself in the back of my parents' car, and ended up having a panic attack because I did not know how to get out. You foolish child, they said. Didn’t you know there is a lever for that?

God’s authority and perfection were the lever, linked and realized in the act of accepting both into your heart. A real father knows you, and will not hurt you or leave. This sounded nice, but there was a problem, and that was what to do with the fathers I did have. Have they known me, or hurt me, or left me? Evidently. Why then should I listen to them? The response: by listening to them you are listening to the real father. I listened, though I was skeptical. Skepticism is baked into adoption. I always had the feeling that my father really wasn’t my father. I also happened to have the paperwork. But that paperwork was ambivalent. It promised that he wasn’t my father but also that he could become so. It promised a way out of fatherlessness.

Church leaders wanted to be sympathetic. I seemed to be having a strange experience but one with discernible cause and solution: coming to know my real father, of whom both the one who left and the one who stayed were copies. I needed the original autographs, from before I could remember. Things only seemed strange. My fantasy was nothing God couldn’t fill.

I've always been scared of height, like my mother and her mother. When I was younger I would stand on a bridge and feel scared, not thinking about jumping or even about falling, but overwhelmed by everything that could happen, something like Kierkegaard’s dizziness of possibility. I’d think about the potential that my shoes could fly off. There are other shoes, but again, I was a child.

As an adult my fear changed. I remember the first time I noticed, in a car on my way to propose marriage to a woman who was not my father. I lay on the floor in the backseat of a car. I had a thought: oh, this is anxiety. I was afraid that the doors would open, that I would fly out. I knew what the pavement looked like. I was afraid the doors would open themselves, and also that I would open them. I was afraid to check whether they were locked, if I did I might slip and unlock, open, leave. When driving I never wore my seat belt, as a passenger I couldn't be buckled securely enough. This went on for years.

I tried to settle into various positions in the world my father left, but I also wanted to leave. There were of course people to try to fix, and no shortage of people trying to fix me. These relations were vital and at the same time premised on a denial. I learned to refuse the world, and l am glad I did. I had trouble learning to love it.

In 2019 I failed. This pushed me to consider the particular ways the world had been failing me. I could think of myself as something other than a hostage when I realized the people I was with were not precisely or only my captors. Having a father who is also not your father is an identity crisis. What I needed to know was that I wasn't special, that this crisis was not only me.

People who knew told me I should see a therapist. I thought I was clever, that I had learned to refuse easy answers. Don’t tell me to go somewhere they will try to convince me that everything is okay. I know better. They can���t restore my father, and I don’t actually want that anyhow. All I had in life was the recognition that something was off, and if therapy took that away I would really have nothing. Eventually I relented, not knowing what else to do. I was able, and felt required, to give a theological justification. I said that I was going to therapy to learn how to more fully turn my attention towards God, my true father. 

My therapist observed disconnections in my feelings towards and experiences of my parents. You need to learn to say what you are feeling, she said, and had me sit in front of an empty chair, reminding me that my father was not actually in it, but asking me to act as if he were. You have things you want to express to yourself and to the man who raised you. I was not able to act as if he were absent. Thirty years I spent with a father who was dead, and I still did not know how to navigate the predicament. I spent that session crying and apologizing, explaining that I knew he had done his best and that I was sorry I hadn't done better. He heard none of it. Bonhoeffer said that to have no gods before God means to live before God as if there were no God. I had been practicing for precisely the opposite situation.

I have mostly been scared to express myself, which makes my job as a writer and a student difficult. I annotate and qualify in a way that creates anxiety for everyone involved. A professor told me that I don’t need to, except when I do, and that I should learn to recognize the difference, giving me the example of the house in France which is an art installation with the plumbing added to the outside. He encouraged me to live instead in the house that I was already in.

Like Hegel said, Christianity got me very close. Its failure was in self-denial, which I have learned is not the one good kind of denial. The father it gave me was absent. The trouble I had with Christianity is I could not accept this, and neither, apparently, could most anyone else. I'm a Christian because I grew up knowing that my experience of fatherhood didn't match even itself, and only insofar as being a Christian is about knowing that objects in the world somehow both are and are not God, that we know God in absence. I have also not really been a Christian because I have believed in God but not his absence.

I could not accept Simone Weil’s suggestion that I become rooted in the absence of a place, so instead I found roots that precluded the possibility of anyone else having a place. This is why while I was being homeschooled I found myself stirred by Oscar Wilde’s description of the most affected man to ever live, and why just a few years later I signed up for the United States Marines Corps.

My father was a jokester before he died. That’s what everyone wants me to know about him, the people who love him at least. It’s also what they want me to know about myself. I look just like him, I am assured. I am the firstborn son, the image of his invisibility. We are not the same. I know things that he does not, like how to take care of myself and what it feels like to be 32. He knows what it is like to leave early, all I have is the desire.

My friend has a father who died after thirty years. Her life teaches me that I am lucky. At least for those thirty years I had a father whom I knew wasn't my father, at least I had a way to recognize the situation more clearly, though I did not. Lucky, but not special. That’s how I hear the gospel today. Being evangelical, being homeschooled, being white, all formed around the fantasy that you can be special. When your father dies, when your father is black, when your father won’t leave you alone, you may come to know you are not, and to realize how you have the same relationship to fatherhood as everyone else.

Liberal theology did not attract me because I could never deny having a father. Nor could I trust the radical theologians pleased to announce God's death while insisting on the need for police. On January 2, 2015 I posted on Facebook: “I have no idea how to responsibly teach the death of God to toddlers.” It was a joke and not a bad one. Five years later I realize a bit more of what I was asking. My fathers were teaching me the whole time. What’s interesting is to think about how your father did it.

This December I was on a Ferris wheel in the center of Philadelphia, surrounded by its tallest buildings. I remember being scared of height and the pleasure of actually being that high. I sat firmly in my seat, and do not remember looking for a lever. My shoes did not fly off, though I considered that they might.

(What helped me write this: Simone Weil Marika Rose Vincent Lloyd Andrea Long Chu Huey P Newton Gillian Rose the Haitian Revolution and being back home for the holidays where I captured with my smartphone an image of my father, teaching me)

[collymore]

Familiar generalizations don’t always tally with stark reality! (Poem)

By Stanley Collymore

 You obviously came into my life when I was down on my

luck and at a time when I couldn’t have given a – no

I’m not going to use that jokey expletive which

rhymes with luck and will instead civilly

employ the more socially acceptable

phrase of saying, as I’ve done

previously, that I was literally down on my luck. But

anyway, things were going staggeringly badly for

me, and understandably my getting involved

with another person, far less so falling in

love again and so soon with anyone,

regardless of who that individual

woman was, was definitely the

last thing I had on my mind;

or for that matter the kind

of reactive action which

honestly, rationally, pragmatically

and much less so judiciously, I

would consciously, or most

fittingly, have seriously

contemplated getting

ensnared into again.

 No bullshit that, nor any wanton, intentional, or cynically

manufactured, all-out determined and self-serving spin

concurring with the definitive reasoning by me, in

order to expressly circumvent the personal and

deeply troubling consequences known to be

intimately coupled with the unrestrained

failure to definitely and permanently

put an evidently embarrassing past behind me, and

through that conscious process negate the likely

possibility, due responsibility and similarly

the apparent necessity of entertaining a

completely new relationship by me,

and essentially out of the earlier

mess that I’d made of my life,

be applicably positioned to

naturally get romantically

involved all over again.

 Well that’s a pretty glib assumption to make as

well as an easy thing for anyone to say, and

especially so for those who have not the

vaguest inkling of who or what I am,

and consequently, fundamentally

do not know nor could conceivably understand

the complicated imponderables, in terms of

valued expectations and ardent emotions,

that when immutably choreographed

and then confidently played out,

their distinctly painstakingly,

exhaustive, collaborative

and convincing ballet

de dance, becomes

the unwavering supplement, on

my part, to my unpretentious

chariness and, naturally,

personal awareness.

 Accordingly, do forgive me for delineating my views so

uncompromisingly, and more to the point especially

so if I have offensively misjudged you as being

among those who have not only collectively

but also conclusively jumped to the false

conclusion, which they unwaveringly

expect and even demand must be

the solitary outcome of how, with no alternative

prospect in their prejudiced deliberations, I

should unquestionably be the man who

they unilaterally decide that I must

unwisely become. To which my

clear response is this: Think

whatever you want to but

take it from me, don’t

ever seriously think

of truly holding

your breath

on that

one!

 © Stanley V. Collymore

14 October 2017.

  Author’s Remarks:

I don’t need to acquaint anyone who’s even vaguely compos mentis, but I’ll remind you here all the same for obvious reasons, that life and its associated factors constitute an ongoing, and invariably a complex game that everyone in varying degrees and often in the case of some of you for substantial periods of time, as you either blissfully, idiotically, manipulatively or even sensibly embark on playing them.

 Sometimes the motivation for doing so is deliberate and clear-cut, on other occasions not even the participants themselves can say with any certainty or even honesty precisely what it is that they’re doing or why; for in truth they haven’t the foggiest notion.

 The game of love is no different and as a pastime has been going on from the beginning of time and specifically that crucial moment when Eve first got a deeply enamoured Adam to nibble her apple, which he apparently liked and consecutively after that occasion continued to have numerous bites from it. It was a regeneration apple you see. The clever ones out there will get the joke; the others, truth to tell, it’s not worth you bothering.

��So long after we’re all of us no longer here, future generations of human beings - should earth and Homo Sapiens manage to survive the impending nuclear holocaust that the morons in Rogue State USA, toadying Britain and the rest of the west’s Useful Idiots that serve the vested interests of the sickos that currently run this world we live in – will maintain the custom of playing their own love games.

[theworstbob]

yellin’ at songs, 3.25.2017

ah man, so i know last week was a bit of a bummer, but i’m really excited to see what the billboard chart has to offer this week! i can’t explain it, i’m just so stoked to see what it’s got! i think it’s gonna be a fun week with dope songs in a variety of genres! i see no way this week’s hot 100 debuts could leave me deflated! i’m so pumped to go on this adventure through the exciting and ever-changing world of music. HIT ME!

37) "Perfect," by Ed Sheeran 49) "Dive," by Ed Sheeran 53) "Galway Girl," by Ed Sheeran 59) "Happier," by Ed Sheeran 72) "New Man," by Ed Sheeran 75) "Supermarket Flowers," by Ed Sheeran 83) "What Do I Know?" by Ed Sheeran 90) "Eraser," by Ed Sheeran 93) "Hearts Don't Break Around Here," by Ed Sheeran 96) "Barcelona," by Ed Sheeran

oh

i see

Look: I knew there were gonna be hella Ed Sheeran songs comin’ up this week, but I didn’t know that’s the only thing the chart had in store. I thought we’d get at least one other artist up in here? Guess not. Guess it’s ten Ed Sheeran songs. But! I knew something like this would happen, so I went ahead and did a thing:

YELLIN’ AT SONGS 2007 EDITION

We’re gonna listen to Divide (there’s no way it’s worth dipping into the character map to type the symbol) at some point this week, drop the review in the Thing Journal, and adjust the Top 20 as necessary next week. This week, we will discuss all the songs that made their chart debut between the 1.13.2007 and 3.24.2007 editions (does that mean you’re not gonna talk about how great “Irreplaceable” is) yeah (that seems stupid) OH IT ENDS UP BEING STUPID, and every week from here on out, 2007 and 2017 will battle it out to prove... Something. Which era’s music I enjoy more? I guess?

1.13.2007 86) "Alyssa Lies," Jason Michael Carroll

Legit this song is amazing. It barely straddles the line between Profound and Schmaltz, barely, but what saves it is the unambiguously tragic ending, where there's a child murdered by her parents and a dad who doesn't know how to talk to his daughter about it. I don't know that anyone in country today has a song this emotionally complex in their pocket, and I’m including the Good Ones in this statement. Brandy Clark’s “Three Kids No Husband” is on this level, but other than that, man. It's so wonderful to hear a song that's trying to do more than satiate, that's looking to challenge, to prompt discussion about an important issue, that's looking to be more than a delivery vehicle for blue jean dancing on a Chevy hood in the summer moonlight. (Full disclosure, I listened to this song at 7 AM after being awake since 2, so I wasn’t in, like, the stablest emotional state? But while looking at what I wrote while more awake and more cynical, I felt this opinion held up, so hey!) Anyhoo, this dude crowdfunded his most recent album, and I'm glad he gets to do this thing he loves without having to make the bro country song. I might not check it out, but I appreciate he's getting it done.

89) "Honestly," Cartel

This was the best take they had of these vocals. Like, I try not to think about vocal performance too much, because that's the easiest thing to think about (please don't tell me how often I talk about vocals, I'm sure it's A Lot), but man. This song came a few weeks before Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and The All-American Rejects would have Top Ten singles at the same time. This song came at a time when there was a huge demand for songs like it, and all the pieces are there. The music's high-energy, they wrote a catchy-as-fuck tune, the words are slightly clever to just a certain extent, it is accompanied by a brightly-colored and timely video, but the dude can't sing. I get that he's the driving creative force. But fucking Pete Wentz was willing to do bass and scream occasionally. If PETE WENTZ could set ego aside for the greater good, what’s your fucking excuse, bro.

90) "Chicken Noodle Soup," Webstar & Young B ft./AG aka The Voice of Harlem

...Well, this is certainly a thing that existed! I am glad that this teen found some avenue of self-expression, I hope she has found success, and I will have you know that my uncultured ass was thrilled to hear DJ Webstar intone, "Shake it, shake it, Harlem Shake it" near the end of the song. Apparently the dance move Chicken Noodle Soup is a derivation of the original form of the Harlem Shake! So this song is #actually a fun footnote in popular music history and viral video history! How grand!

94) "U + Ur Hand," P!nk

If you don't love a rad-ass song about tellin' some creep dude to fuck himself, I don't know what to tell you. I can't imagine we're on the same page in any book. This is just a wholesome good time for the whole family, I don't see anything to pick on here.

96) "King Kong," Jibbs ft./Chamillionaire

It's interesting listening to this song in an era where Future has imitators, because it is at once refreshing to hear a rap song that isn't about internal darkness and self-loathing and all that jazz and disappointing to hear a rap song that's just about car speakers. When I express disappointment at the amount of trap singles on the chart, I am forgetting that there are classics I unreservedly love, "Bad and Boujee"s and "Selifsh"s, and that the songs I don't like will fall to the wayside as "King Kong" did.

98) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," Jennifer Hudson

THIS WON AN OSCAR. You know the only demerits you can give this track? One, she doesn't go I'M NOT WAKING UP TOMORROW MORNING HA-HA. She omits the Ha-Ha. The other mark you can take off is, Jennifer Hudson never had to perform it with the same emotional intensity and technical proficiency every single day for several months in front of a live audience. How do people who act on Broadway stay alive. So basically the worst thing about this song is that Jennifer Hudson isn't Jennifer Holliday? C’mon, y’all, I didn't come here to say actual bad things about this song. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not That Guy. "This phoenix's rise from the ashes could have used more fire!" I'M SORRY THIS IMPOSSIBLE THING YOU HAVE WITNESSED WASN'T DAZZLING ENOUGH

1.20.2007 81) "Lost Without U," Robin Thicke

I listened to "And I Am Telling You" for like half an hour before moseying on over to /sigh/ this song. Also I watched an episode of Cheers, took a nap while watching a carlsagan42 video, and watched the film Spotlight. I had momentum, and then I saw this schmuck was on deck and I said, "Nah." This song is somewhat more interesting when you consider that the dude got incredibly divorced with the woman about whom he wrote this song, but then you hear the line "You wanna touch yourself when you see me," and just, fuck this dude. "Gurl, I love you so much, so I wrote this song about you." "Is that line about how I masturbate at the very sight of you?" "It's one of the things I love most."

85) "Doe Boy Fresh," Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire

Three 6 Mafia gets to start their songs by shouting ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS! because we live, despite everything, in the best universe. Hey: did we give Chamillionaire a fair shake? I am aware that Chamillionaire's done alright for himself, but I've heard two songs with Chamillionaire features, and I have seen the future and know that Chamillionaire isn't that much of a factor, and that seems odd. He's pretty solid! Not like something to write home about, but it seems weird he had an inescapable #1 hit so awesome the beat gave Weird Al a top-20 hit, then just dropped off the face of the earth. I appreciate the solid work he did in 2006. You're good people, Chamillionaire.

87) "Cupid's Chokehold," Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump

I wonder if the other dudes in Gym Class Heroes and the other dudes in Maroon 5 ever hang out. You know, just talk about music, talk about their lives, make each other feel valued. This is the world I like to imagine. This song is charming, and I'm going to go out on a limb and claim it's unhateable. It's such light-hearted fun! If you can hear this song and feel anything but glee, you're probably the sort of person that has watched Ken Burns' Baseball three times.

99) "Candyman," Christina Aguilera

There was a hot minute when Christina Aguilera was trying to introduce a retro, big-bandy influence to her work, and it was the greatest minute of our lives. Can we have a moment for "Tilt Ya Head Back," a 2004 track no one remembers that is worthy of far more admiration than it has received? I'ma just say it: that Christina Aguilera is far too big to make an appearance on Postmodern Jukebox is a damn shame. They oughta break the bank for her.

1.27.2007 69) "Jump to the Rhythm," Jordan Pruitt

This is adorable. You go, 15-year-old girl who has been intermittently active over the past decade. And our first future The Voice alum! That's neat! Just the one chair? Yeah, that sounds about right. At least you made this fun song the one time!

77) "He Said She Said," Ashley Tisdale

This song is a fucking mess. This is not a voice meant to sing bangers, nor is it a voice meant to rap for any reason ever. This song has two different choruses. Maybe everyone should have chilled out for a couple of seconds, had a nice think about it, figured out how to make this coherent. I don't know much about songwriting, but if I write a song with the same title as a limpbizkit song, and anyone on earth that wasn't a 15-year-old white boy in 2001 thinks the limpbizkit song was better, I have to consider the song an objective failure.

92) "Mr. Jones," Mike Jones

I can't believe the producer of this song doesn't even have a stub on Wikipedia. I love this track. History did Myke Diesel wrong. And Mike Jones, I dunno, ever since I read The Rap Year-Book and learned how Mike Jones made his name, I have a certain amount of respect for what he was able to accomplish. Is he great at rapping? Nah. But is he a boy who seems nice that has made a number of not-unpleasant songs? Yes! This is #2 on the Songs Named "Mr. Jones" Power Rankings, but it is a solid, earned position. (Dear Progressive Boink: I hope this Google Alert has found you well. Please tell me where I can find your Mike Jones: A Career story, as it is the Best Thing, but Google is unhelpful, and SB Nation websites are nightmares to navigate.)

94) "My, Oh My," The Wreckers

...Y'know what, I'm not gonna strain to have some grand ol' opinion or make some dumb ol' joke right now. This song's dope. I dig it.

98) "Glamorous," Fergie ft./Ludacris

What if the only reason we don't like Fergie is because it's impossible for us to separate Fergie as a pop song delivery mechanism from Fergie the chick from Black Eyed Peas? Let's say the aliens come to earth, download all our music, but unplug their thing from the dock before uploading is complete and somehow Black Eyed Peas files get corrupted but Fergie files remain pristine. How would they take Fergie? Would they think this is a nice song about living out your dreams? Or would they still think it was kinda shallow and vapid and all those things we associate with Fergie because she makes, ya know, shallow and vapid music? I think there's a lot to like about this song divorced from the greater context of Fergie's career. It's sneaky-dope. Just don't think about where it came from.

2.3.2007 2) "This Ain't a Scene, it's an Arms Race," Fall Out Boy

I'm of two minds on this one. One, I know all the words and could prolly kill it at karaoke if the need ever arose. I have something not quite unlike love for this track. Two, it's not... good? At least, I'm not sure it's one of my 20 favorite Fall Out Boy songs. Or top 40. It's in the middle of the list somewhere. The song is kinda nonsense. My enduring memory of this song will always be the Kanye West remix, where the first line of Kanye's verse is, "I don't know what the hell this song is talkin' 'bout. Do you?" If people do a guest verse for your song and feel emboldened enough to say, "What the fuck is this," you've made a kinda shitty song? It's not one of my better Fall Out Boy memories. *gasp* IS THAT A PLUG?!

14) "Push it to the Limit," Corbin Bleu

This is an acceptable dance track and, again, in a position where I see the future, I don't see why we couldn't have just taken all of Chris Brown's songs and given them to this snappy young man. Look at all the jump ropes he does! We could have replaced Chris Brown with Corbin Bleu and lost nothing. (This is not an equal exchange. Corbin Bleu has Chris Brown's career and is also in High School Musical, and it is a happy accident that "Run It" gets big just as High School Musical starts popping. Chris Brown becomes his backup dancer, and without the pressure of fame, he’s not a monster. He’s still kind of a dick, but if he’s not with his bros, he’s kinda chill. Everyone is happier in this arrangement.)

50) "If Everyone Cared," Nickelback

Shit. This is the only Nickelback song to debut on the Hot 100 in 2007. I have to make this count: Nickelback is trash. Nickelback has always been trash. Nickelback has not stopped being trash. We stopped pointing out that Nickelback is trash, but it is important to remember that Nickelback is trash. This song is incredibly trash. Yes, it would be better if things were nicer, what a profound fucking observation. Is pop music worse off today than it was in 2007? Enh. There's an overabundance of trap, I don't like all the songs that sound like the apocalypse, but at least we have long been rid of this trash. I would take a thousand G-Eazy songs before I took another fucking second of Nickelback.

79) "Don't Matter," Akon

it's like someone just kinda said "hey here's a bunch of shit that'd make for a listenable pop song" and someone else said "a'ight man put 'em together" and then this came out. i still can't believe someone who sounded like akon was as huge as akon was.

86) "Go Getta," Young Jeezy ft./R. Kelly

I'm likely supposed to have left this song feeling a tad more energized than I had been prior. I dunno. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for a pump-up anthem? Maybe this sounded like a thousand high school football players' highlight reels? My heart just wasn't open for this one, man.

87) "This Is Why I'm Hot," MIMS

Maybe I'm listening to this wrong, but this feels really close to being a 2017 hit. This would be the easiest trap remix ever, just roll the drum machine a few extra times, throw in a "SKRRRRRRRRRRRRT" here and there, this could absolutely be a hit today. You can Auto-tune MIMS if you want, I think he can hold his own without it, but then again, I've never made a hit record before, I don't know. All I know is, this song that never left 2007 is somehow the one that sounds the most timeless so far.

89) "She's Like the Wind," Lumidee ft./Tony Sunshine

...In what universe is Tony Sunshine the featured artist? No. No, I had to endure this song, the same thousand-minute-long chorus with a brief, lazily recited verse preceding each instance, I think I deserve to know, where does Lumidee get off taking the credit for this song. Does she get the main credit because the song's about her? Is that it? Is the dude saying "She's like the wind!" and Lumidee's just like "A-yup?" I could get it if that's the case. But legit what is this. Hey 2007, what is this. You're competing with the future and mayhaps, if I'm ever up for it, the past. Step it up.

94) "Last Night," Diddy ft./Keyshia Cole

Great. Great. I asked you to step it up, and now, Diddy's singing. T-Pain, I don't know when you're coming, but I already know you're too late. It makes me angry Diddy thought he could sing because EVERYTHING FUCKING ELSE ABOUT THIS SONG IS ON POINT. Hey, Diddy? Dude from Cartel? If you were trying to show the world you could single-handedly sink your respective enterprises, well congratuFUCKINGLATIONS your plaques are in the mail

95) "From Yesterday," 30 Seconds to Mars

So here's the funny thing about this song: I had thought I had never heard this song, but the second that "on his face is a map of the world" line played for the first time (of many! (so many times!)), it clicked that this is a song I had, in fact, heard before, and for which had already decided there was no room in my heart. I look forward to forgetting this again.

2.10.2007 83) "Smile," Lily Allen

THIS IS A SONG I LIKE BUT IT'S A SONG I HAVEN'T DONE MUCH MORE OR LESS THAN LIKE FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS SO I DUNNO WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO SAY HERE. It's not like this is some forgotten gem, or has some hitherto unremarked upon flaw, or is a classic must needs be further analyzed. It's a fun song about wishing the worst on your enemies, and I think it tricked every single person on earth, including Lily Allen, into thinking she was more clever than she was. (This doesn't make the chart, but remember that song where she put her brother on blast? She made an entire song about what a lazy worthless fuck her brother was. We don't talk about that enough, how the twenty-seventh most-notable female pop star of the aughts pulled the receipts on her brother, the thirty-second male lead on Game of Thrones, for absolutely no reason.)

86) "Phantom Limb," The Shins

This is an intricately composed track (I know nothing of song composition), it keeps adding new things every half-minute, and it all builds to this closing guitar solo which is, for lack of a more descriptive term, impactful. I'm sure the lyrics would have some deeper meaning I'd be able to ascertain if this man weren't so insistent on forlornly mumbling, but what we have here is a song which not only demands but deserves attention. I don't have fucking time for this nonsense. "Nyeh, I'm The Shins, you have to sit with my works and let them sink in an" NAH FUCK THAT THERE'S NO WAY THE REWARD IS WORTH THE EFFORT.

92) "Hillbilly Deluxe," Brooks & Dunn

We can debate the true origin of bro country. It likely took root with "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," when radio executives learned that there was a sizable demand for country culture references shouted loudly over energetic music. "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" dropped in 2004. I don't know what went down in country music between 2004 and 2007. It looks like country leaned harder and harder on their tropes -- you had a "Hicktown" here, a "Redneck Yacht Club" there, but those dudes weren't established stars, they were dudes just trying to find their way in. Trace Adkins dropped "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," but it feels unfair to that song to lump it in with "That's What I Love About Sunday," it was trying to be much sillier. I think this song is the moment when the Nashville establishment fully embraced the trend and began its descent into blandness. It's not that it was overwhelmingly popular, it topped out at #16 on the country chart, it's that a group with 20 #1 singles decided that this was an acceptable song to make. Once a leader in the genre talked about packing a pick-em-up truck with country girls, it was all over.

93) "Famous Last Words," My Chemical Romance

OH FUCK IT’S A HOT TAKE: Welcome to the Black Parade is a self-important and over-ambitious album that has only gotten worse with time. This comment applies to this song because the last few seconds of this song are a wholly unpleasant tangle of screams, because that's how you sell a story, is you just shout until people agree it's good. Three Cheers and Danger Days are good! I can't think of a single thing about Black Parade that I enjoyed. Ugh, I just remembered the key change in the title track, Why, Who Let You.

97) "The River," Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates

See, the heft of this song is disproportionate to the weight this band had previously carried, but I think it works here, makes this song more powerful than I feel it should be. Let’s jump into some Good Charlotte deep cuts: if you go back to "The Day That I Die," you hear Good Charlotte has been asking if they've been living their life right, so it's not a stretch that they'd write a song stating, no, they fucked up in a lot of ways, and now they must needs beg forgiveness before they can begin correcting course in earnest. Am I putting too much thought into this because I feel a need to defend how much I love this song, given the source? Lil' bit! But I think Good Charlotte more than earned a moment of introspection, and while I do not understand why Synyster Gates is here or what he added to the proceedings, I'm glad that name is in my life for a few moments more.

98) "Beer in Mexico," Kenny Chesney

I was all set to make fun of Kenny Chesney but there's horns in this country song. I am here for horns in country songs. You know who has a horn section in their country songs in 2017? Sturgill Simpson, and no one else. I'll ride for this song because it affords the opportunity to positively compare Kenny Chesney to Sturgill Simpson.

100) "B.U.D.D.Y.," Musiq Soulchild

Thank you for joining me today. I know you have been waiting for me to give my official statement on mid-aughts R&B jams about fuck buddies. Here it is: I'm for 'em. I will not be taking any questions today. Thank you, and gods bless.

2.17.2007 40) "Year 3000," Jonas Brothers

"I took a trip to the year 3000, this song had gone multi-platinum" FACT CHECK: The song sold just over a million copies in he United States, only enough to earn it one platinum plaque. There is, of course, still time for a million more people to purchase "Year 3000," it's not as if the song is unavailable, but it is highly unlikely this comes to fruition. "Everybody bought our seveth album, it had outsold Kelly Clarkson" FACT CHECK: I just looked up Jonas Brothers Discography on Wikipedia to complete a dumb joke about a ten-year-old boy band song that's actually a cover of a song by a different boy band. The original song apparently had incestuous overtones! Good call to remove those, boys!

48) "Over It," Katharine McPhee

Man, this is an interesting flash back to a girl with a song in her heart as she's waiting to start her adventure. That fire and drive that make dreams come alive, they fill her soul, she's in control. The drama! The laughter! The tears just like pearls! They're all in this girl's repertoire! It's all for the taking, and it's magic we'll be making: LET ME BE YOUR STAAAAAAAAAAAR yeah i fucking KNOW this is megan hilty's verse but it fit the joke better, ok? OKAY?! listen. the past is on the cutting room floor. the future is here with me. choose me.

61) "Dashboard," Modest Mouse

This is probably the first song on these charts that I've listened to hundreds of times and can say I truly love. This is a weird thing to say about a song that is either about dying in a car fire or standing on a capsizing boat. Modest Mouse wrote one optimistic song, “Float On,” and I was one of many teens who through this discovered a band with the same bleak outlook as them. I watched a documentary on Charles Bukowski because I so identified with the song “Bukowski.” (Didn't read any books or poems or whatever, just rented the documentary from Netflix. That's the best way to engage with writers, right?) Of course I loved this song that said, "If the world don't like us it'll shake us just like we were a cold," because it's a fucking amazing song that thinks about its own insignificance JUST LIKE ME! We don't talk nearly enough about the several notches Johnny Marr kicked this band, y'all. I'm still trying to figure out how to catch how differences in instrumentation impacts an artist's sound, but even my mega-untrained ears at 17 could discern just how much fuller, how much more intense Johnny Marr made this band. I almost wanted to listen to The Smiths, but even back then, I knew The Smiths were a bridge too far. So much of my teenage years were spent staring at the search bar into which I entered “Girlfriend in a Coma,” mouse hovering over the search button, just saying to myself “This will only make you worse.”

67) "Say OK," Vanessa Hudgens

Um. I. I don't know what happened. I don't, um, I kinda fucking love this song? I don't know. This feeling is confusing for me. Maybe I just identify with the need to have someone not tell me they love me, just have someone say everything's OK, say that we're gonna be fine. ...Ah fucking shit, I think that living in the Trump era has engendered within me a profound attachment to a Vanessa Hudgens song. But even divorced from this context, like, the title of my tumblog has always been "I'm Just Trying My Best, Guys." I hella connect with a girl just asking to be told she's good.

77) "Lips of an Angel," Jack Ingram

It's always surprised me that no one in Hinder has tried for a solo country career, because "Lips of an Angel" is sort of a perfect country song. It's a man who's cheating on his girlfriend with an old flame, and it's kind of the flip side of those small town Saturday nights, the dark undercurrent of small town living, where you see the same people and go to the same places and can never quite get rid of feelings you used to harbor as a teen. "Lips of an Angel" would be a towering achievement in country music in the right hands, and while I don't think Jack Ingram really strove to unlock this song's potential, doesn't quite get at the emotional depth (I think I've used that phrase twice in this post, what am I doing), there's still a lot to like about this cover, simply for the fact it brings "Lips of an Angel" home.

81) "Grace Kelly," Mika

i mean this song is perfect the fuck do you want from me, to nit-pick? why would i nit-pick? if i look for flaws, i'ma find 'em, because nothing is truly flawless, and i would much rather this song remain perfect for me, thank you.

82) "Thinking About You," Norah Jones

This song is about 204 seconds long and does about as much for me as watching a reupload of the Indie Singer Kitchen Vine 34 times in a row would. ...Yeah, that's not really fair, you're right, I should be more stoked about this era when a quiet jazz tune could stand alongside the High School Musical titans and thudding rap tracks and all the emo songs. I don't think I've heard anything like this in the 2017 list. I'm still not a fan? But I respect it.

83) "Crazy Car," The Naked Brothers Band

this sounds like this kid's parents only let this kid listen to The Beatles, like they home-schooled him and taught him all the basics but also taught a music class focused solely on listening to, analyzing, and interpreting the music The Beatles made, but they leave out all the drugs The Beatles did because this is a wholesome home-school, and then when the kid turned 13 they handed him a guitar and said, "OK. Time to write a song." so this kid has 13 years of extremely limited life experience, the only music he's known is The Beatles, and he’s asked to write a song. this is what this song sounds like. "Uh, The Beatles sure wrote some crazy songs, uh, what if, a. Car? was crazy." which, hey, it worked! it would be the worst Beatles song, but it doesn't sound unlike a Beatles song!

92) "Wouldn't Get Far," The Game ft./Kanye West

In the backdoor pilot for Yellin' at 2007 last eek, I threw this out as what could hypothetically be my favorite song of 2007, a mostly forgotten track from big names that spent a limited time in the back half of the Hot 100, like my beloved "Run Up." I hadn't heard the song before, but given that The Game (who made one of my favorite albums of 2016) and Kanye (Kanye) were involved, I thought it was a safe pick. I will now be more thoroughly vetting my throwaway lines. This is a song about how the hot chicks in rap videos have too much power, which is a baffling premise. I don't think I've ever been watching a rap video and think, "Boy, that girl in the bikini has all the power in the world. Um, excuse me, I think the artist is the star of the show? You owe your entire career to him! Say thank you." 100% fuck this. This is the most meninist rap song in existence, and I sincerely hope all parties involved would like to take this one back. Yikes.

94) "Wasted," Carrie Underwood

this is a song about figuring out that you're stuck in a rut and becoming cynical and deciding you want to make a change and live your life more purposefully, and i am not going to try to connect it to the state of modern country, because i honestly can't see how it could possibly connect to modern country! i know i should probably be talking about this song on its own, and it fits the template of a Vaguely Inspirational Carrie Underwood Ballad quite well, does a highly admirable job of delivering insane vocal work and A Message, but i am aligned with the Stop Bro Country 2017 movement (not an actual movement), and pointing out how this song does what Bro Country doesn’t is part of the mission.

96) "Be Good to Me," Ashley Tisdale

There's a lot of things you could do with the "In Da Club" beat. You could even just make "In Da Club" again. I think it would have been quite silly to have Ashley Tisdale drop a cover of "In Da Club," but if I had a choice between having Ashley Tisdale cover "In Da Club" or having her make this song with a beat strongly reminiscient of "In Da Club," I'm weathering the thinkpieces and the most smashed dislike button in history and having Ashley Tisdale cover "In Da Club," because at least Ashley Tisdale trying to pull off 50 Cent lines would be fucking hilarious. This is... Man, the people who were put in charge of Ashley Tisdale's music career were horrible at their jobs! She gets swallowed whole by even this pale imitation of the "In Da Club" beat, but what was she doing here to begin with? You throw your kids into the deep end to teach them how to swim, not the middle of the Indian Ocean! Like, look at Ariana Grande's career. Her debut album is nice '50s-influenced songs, and then she slowly but surely gets more modern and develops more attitude, and now she can make songs like "Into You," because she was allowed to develop as a performer into someone with confidence that could stand up to modern music's production. They started Ashley Tisdale at "Into You," and that is a poor way to start this young woman fresh off goddamned High School Musical. Fucking "Candyman" existed in this time. You could've ripped off "Candyman," and we all would have been happier. I literally can't believe I turned on an Ashley Tisdale song and my first thought was, "That's the 'In Da Club' beat."

97) "Settlin'," Sugarland

oh wow a country song about how good enough isn't really good enough, that's a common occurence in modern country, so much so i'm not sure why i'm calling this one out, it's just so common, country songs about having goals and wanting more out of life! i'm not looking forward to "Everyday America," i don't remember that song but it's gonna be a tough listen in 2017 i'm sure, but Sugarland was hella reliable in their day, and i appreciated the reminder of their prowess.

98) "I'll Wait for You," Joe Nichols

"it's sad when people die!" it sure is, joe.

99) "Anyway," Martina McBride

"optimism is good!" thank you for coming to my blog. what a fun and worthwhile exercise this is. martina has a bigger jesus piece than kanye. i mean i haven't done a side-by-side comparison, and i may be conflating the idea of a jesus piece with a cross, but that's a big-ass fuckin' cross.

2.24.2007 77) "Outside Looking In," Jordan Pruitt

THIS FRESH TEEN HAD TWO HOT 100 HITS AND BOTH OF THEM WERE AT LEAST A LITTLE DOPE. I'm officially kinda interested in what a Jordan Pruitt song sounds like ten years later! There's something in here might be worth following, something here that might have been accessed and taken to a cool place. Or she could drop an "In Da Club" cover. I'd be happy with either outcome.

78) "Not Fade Away," Sheryl Crow

This song isn't available on YouTube, and I'm not really all that interested in finding a song I won't like, so I'm just going to pretend Sheryl Crow covered the series finale of Angel, the fourth-best Joss Whedon show. What a bold choice, to release a cover version of a TV episode! I think it was an odd choice for Sheryl Crow to play all the parts, but that was before I knew what an amazing voice actress she was! That voice she did when she's Illyria as Fred, where you know that she's Fred but there's just enough Illyria in there that you know Fred didn't just randomly come back? *kisses fingers* Bella! I think it was a bold artistic move to release a 44-minute song that's actually just a TV episode in radio play form, but a hit's a hit!

87) "Give it to Me," Timbaland ft./Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake

gosh has timbaland aged poorly! there's at least ten different things happening at any given point in this song, and what was unique albeit headache-inducing in 2007 is overly-busy and gross to hear in 2017. can you believe we ever liked this shit? like when people make fun of the mid-aughts' music, they're gonna do it with timbaland-style beats.

93) "1st Time," Yung Joc ft./Marques Houston & Trey Songz

I like, instead of thinking about this slow-ass song, imagining a world where Yung Joc accidentally booked Houston and Songz for the same session, so he just recorded this track with both of them on the hook, and when they both left the producer said "Yung Joc! What are we gonna do about 'Love Fire!'" or whatever the song Trey Songz was supposed to be on was called, and Yung Joc said, "Nah, we're just gonna do it without the feature," so somewhere out there there's a Yung Joc song that simply doesn't have a hook, or has a hook sung by like a janitor or something because all involved decided it was weird that there was just thirty seconds of instrumental between the verses.

94) "2 Step," Unk

What if this is a prequel to "Walk It Out?" Where Unk realizes that a full walk might be too advanced for his class, so he teaches them how to take two steps until they're ready to take on a full walk? This song observes the time-honored tradition of substituting loud for fun and hoping no one can tell the difference.

100) "Rock Yo Hips," Crime Mob ft./Lil Scrappy

This song's video started with a drumline walking across a bridge, and that made a promise this song broke. Why would you set expectations for a "Lose My Breath"-style beat just to dash them. What a waste.

3.03.2007 56) "Like a Star," Corinne Bailey Rae

This was pleasant background music for the article analyzing the upcoming NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament from a standpoint of which players are worthwhile NBA prospects to watch I chose to think about instead! Lonzo Ball, man, he has a really shitty sports dad, maybe not John Tomic bad but certainly Piotr Wozniacki bad, but if the dad calms the hell down, Lonzo's gonna be something else. Oh well this song's over, alright, that was sure nice. Good job, friend.

71) "Gravity," John Mayer

god but john mayer's worthless.

73) "High Maintenance Woman," Toby Keith

I mean, this song is kinda creepy, but it's also about a country boy with an unrequited crush on a city girl, and he's not like "I'ma take you to a cornfield and we're gonna listen to the music of the roosters," he's like, "Yeah, it's not gonna happen, and that sucks but oh well." The maintenance man never makes his pitch to the high maintenance woman, because it's clear: there's no way to bridge the gap between them. What a tragic tale.

75) "Flathead," The Fratellis

remember the post-punk revival that kicked off with modest mouse and franz ferdinand and the killers dropping fire tracks that sort of wound up being brit-rock band after brit-rock band trying their best at their own "take me out," and also the killers got mad pompous? what a terrible fad that was! the fratellis stand in for the zutons and razorlight and bloc party and kasabian and the feeling and all those gross shitty brit-rock bands that said "We can make 'Take Me Out' no problem!" and wasted everyone's goddamned time trying. ...okay i guess bloc party ended up making "I Still Remember," they're cool, but if you were a british rock band in the mid-aughts, you were making just the worst things.

90) "I'm a Flirt," Bow Wow or R. Kelly ft./T.I. & T-Pain

this is a really cool song about how r. kelly is going to hit on every single thing alive whether it (and it is strongly important i use "it" here, as this is surely in line with r. kelly's worldview) desires his advances or not, which is a really cool song for r. kelly to have made. t.i. appears on this song to remind us that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

91) "Read My Mind," The Killers

"also the killers got mad pompous." ~me, like ten minutes ago (for me, maybe like seven seconds ago for y'all?). I think I'm trying to cram too much into a short amount of time, but man, it's been like ten songs since I've heard something I'm even a little into. I’m havin’ a rough go. As this man moans about how sad he is or whatever, I think back to that young outcast girl, trying to survive high school, and I enjoy her even more. Jordan Pruitt is the greatest artist of this or any generation, and her new album will be a balm for the world.

100) "Stand," Rascal Flatts

Like, here's the thing I forgot about songs forgotten by time: a lot of them deserve to have been forgotten! Our expedition to the past has thus far yielded a dope Vanessa Hudgens song, affirmed that I enjoy Modest Mouse, and has brought home treacly pop/country ballad after TREACLY POP/COUNTRY BALLAD. I have three weeks left. One of these weeks has "Girlfriend." I wanted to do this. I thought this would be a valuable use of my time. ...You're right, it's my fault for not just picking a random week to analyze the Hot 100 so I could have "Irreplaceable" waiting for me at the end. I'm talking about the songs of 2007, yet the rules I have in place prevent me from bringing up "Irreplaceable." Aaaaaaaag.

3.10.2007 72) "Break 'Em Off," Paul Wall ft./Lil' KeKe

At one point Lil' Keke says, "Buckle up the seatbelt," and I am glad that this song is committed to safety. Also "student loans on my tooth" is a timeless metaphor that I absolutely adore. I think I just spent four minutes with this beat and eventually kind of accepted that the "bwah bwah bwabwabwah" was a fact of life and rolled with it. "Student loans on my tooth." Bless this song.

84) "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')," T-Pain ft./Yung Joc

If I were T-Pain, I would be doing my best Serena Williams impression and tweeting out "I made you" every single time there's some news article about some sales record Future broke. Like, if you go back in time and play Future for someone who just heard "Rapper's Delight" for the first time, there's no way they'd be able to trace the evolutionary line from Sugarhill Gang to whatever they just heard, but you play "Draco" for someone in 2007 that just heard T-Pain for the first time, they could give a rough sketch, Auto-Tune becomes de rigeur and then some Kurt Cobain-like figure comes in and just bums everyone out. I have compared Future to Kurt Cobain when I'm supposed to be talking about this T-Pain song. T-Pain is the grandfather of modern music, is what I’m trying to say, and this song should be in a museum, as it is an essential piece of American history. Without songs like these, who knows if we ever get My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy?

88) "Circle," Marques Houston

This is alright enough! It holds my interest about as well as the average Adele song, so hey, way to earn this Adele comparison, friend! A wholly unregrettable four minutes! Honestly I'm just obsessed with these shots in the video of Marques Houston standing in the middle of a room surrounded by five pianists. I have so many questions about this particular creative choice. Why five? Why are they arranged so haphazardly? The song is called "Circle." The five pianos are arranged in two rows. That is curious! Did any of the girls know how to play piano? The hats: did you try to have your pianists wear other hats that did not work as well? Did you try any hatless shots? What a curious video.

90) "Keep Your Mind Wide Open," AnnaSophia Robb

Young woman, I have known Jordan Pruitt. You are no Jordan Pruitt. Jordan Pruitt would have turned this into a jam. And now I'm on the Bridge to Terabitihia (2007 film) Wikipedia and asking myself if Leslie was the original manic pixie dream girl, and, boy, is that ever a thought I have to live the rest of my life knowing I have had. (She was BTW. Oh just you wait I've got a real corker waiting once we get to Elliott Yamin's song.)

98) "Pop Lock and Drop It," Huey

/sigh/ I mean, it brought dance to the world. i hated listening to it, but nothing that puts more dance in the world is completely devoid of value.

99) "Long Trip Alone," Dierks Bentley

now, when i called the girl in bridge to terabitihia a manic pixie dream girl, know that, while i am assigning the designation based on a barely-remembered sixth-grade reading of the novel and a plot synopsis on wikipedia, i am using the phrase manic pixie dream girl in its original sense, that leslie is a character who only exists to show the damaged male character that he is still worthwhile and his life can still be filled with magic and wonderment. i am not using it to say "this is a female character i don't like," as has become common practice. also for the record, i know a Mary Sue is a character that exists as a vessel of wish fulfillment for the author, an over-powered character who gets too much to do and strains credulity. a Mary Sue is also not a female character i don't like. this song blows.

3.17.2007 5) "Girlfriend," Avril Lavigne

We didn't have to listen to this. What if we all had made "Don't Tell Me" or "My Happy Ending" just slightly bigger hits? Do the Powers That Be not get so desperate that they try to turn Avril into a cheerleader? It never had to be like this. We had the choice. We could have told Arista/RCA that we enjoyed our bratty mall-punk queen Avril just the way she was, and they didn't have to fuck with the formula. But we didn't, so they went ahead and made things o complicated, and we got this. This awful, awful thing. We should have recognized that Avril would be a thing until we stopped paying attention to her completely, and that if we ignored her she would only try to recapture our attention, but we just said "Eh, 'My Happy Ending' ain't that bad," because we are fools who believe in half-measures.

61) "Movin' On," Elliott Yamin

Elliott Yamin was the Bernie Sanders of season five of American Idol. Katharine McPhee was Hillary Clinton, the princess whose win the producers so clearly desired but was really boring and never really seized the moment at any point. Daughtry was Ted Cruz, the consummate professional who would've been a fine evil overlord had voters not found him so aloof, and Taylor Hicks was, of course, Donald Trump, the loud fuckbag who was complete trash but shouted the same catch-phrase a million times and beat himself into a certain segment of the American population's hearts, and then he won and delegitimized the whole enterprise. (American Idol before Hicks: Clarkson, Aiken, Fantasia, J-Hud, Underwood, Daughtry, McPhee, Yamin. American Idol after Hicks: Jordin Sparks’ 2008, ???.) Elliott Yamin was never going to win. He was too goofy, too different, there is no America in which Elliott Yamin is an Idol. But if you listened to him, it was clear he was the most talented, was the most forward-thinking, had the best chance of anyone at a Clarkson-esque career in pop music. Listen to this song! It's so fucking dope! It's the freshest jam I've heard since I don't know when, a song I absolutely love! I want to believe in an America that would believe in this song, but I know I can't, I could never trust America to vote for this dude. Also real talk Mandisa's more my speed. There is no analogue for Mandisa in the 2016 election. That was fucked up, what we did to Mandisa. Thank you for reading my American Idol thinkpiece.

74) "The Neighbor," Dixie Chicks

This is still a great song about a rage just a tad more passive-aggressive than that on display in "Not Ready to Make Nice," which this song essentially follows up. It's both about living with a neighbor who talked mad shit about you and about all the country dudes who probably called them horrible names after they spoke out about Bush. Like, "I mean. I live here, though? I'm not moving, dawg. Y'all can't just act like I don't live here." It's not a towering achievement in the field of revenge songs, but if I needed all songs to be "Not Ready to Make Nice," I wouln't be listening to other songs.

76) "Outta My System," Bow Wow ft./T-Pain & Johnta Austin

sure. i'm okay with the fact this song existed. y'all earned this B. i'm so bored i'm assigning grades.

81) "Like a Boy," Ciara

Hip-hop lost something when they stopped inviting Miri Ben-Ari to play violin on their songs instead of synthesizing strings. That said, this is the first song in a good long while that I think we slept on. I won't assign forgotten classic status, it's a tad over-dramatic and there's always something just a bit intangible (of course it's intangible it's a song) shut up, there's just something that always feels missing from a Ciara song, always feels like the ingredients are all present but there's some spice or another that the dish could have used, and my palette isn't quite refined enough to identify exactly what's missing but something in that pantry could have sent this bad boy to the moon. (I didn't want to say Flavor Town and thus lost control of the metaphor.) It's surprisingly good! It's fine if you don't check it out tho all of us will be OK if you don't.

83) "Home," Daughtry

I can't imagine ever having a strong opinion about this song.

84) "Because of You," Ne-Yo

the bass note that plays once every measure is such a fucking miracle, that tiny little "ba-doom" is just pure, like the choice to put that thing in this song is the strongest argument i've ever heard for the christian god. might could be i see what's next and am holding onto this with all my heart. ne-yo is worthy of all my heart, tho. there is no such thing as a bad ne-yo song, he even took piles' "bust it baby pt. 2" to the stratosphere, and that song contains the single-worst lyric in music history. our lives are emptier without him.

89) "Freak on a Leash (Unplugged)," Ko[backwards R]n ft./Amy Lee

i'm not gonna blame 2007 for this one. this is 1999 reaching its wretched hand through the ground and trying to pull us all down to its hell. "THEY GOT AMY LEE!" KEEP RUNNING. "WE HAVE TO SAVE HER!" SHE’S GONE! “WE HA --” BEN SHE’S FUCKING GONE AND WE HAVE TO KEEP RUNNING

91) "Look After You," The Fray

I mean yeah sure. a fine job you did with the thing you always are.

95) "Better Than Me," Hinder

WERE WE ALL AWARE THAT ICE-T HAD A METAL BAND?! So, okay, I was listening to "Better Than Me" and wondering what the shit I was supposed to say about this grossness, but then YouTube said the band Body Count had a single called "No Lives Matter," and the part of me that watches films like The Room said, "Oh, that's gonna be a bad time." I clicked away from Hinder's tripe because I needed to see what this band related to Hinder was doing with a song called "No Lives Matter." I was expecting a regrettable nu-metal jam about the meaningless of life, a version of "In the End" with the worst imaginable song title, and then Ice-T started monologuing on how bullshit All Lives Matter-ass white folks are, and I thought, okay, sure, that's Ice-T, that's a get, I guess whatever the fuck Body Count is is cognizant of social issues, and THEN THE SONG STARTED AND IT WENT HARD AS FUCK AND ICE-T WAS SCREAMING ABOUT RACISM AND I AM SO INTO THIS FUCKING SONG. So I guess I found something worthwhile about "Better Than Me:" inputting it into your watch history causes the YouTube algorithm to recommend SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS THRASHER ANTHEMS for you!

96) "Last Dollar (Fly Away)," Tim McGraw

if tim mcgraw has ever been down to his last dollar someone somewhere deeply fucked up. "i've worn right through my shoes." JUST BUY NEW SHOES. YOU ARE WORTH $140M. YOU CAN FUCKING AFFORD NEW SHOES. man these rap songs in the project have been kinda shitty, but at least they're aspirational. they're all about dudes who wanna drive fancy cars and drink expensive liquors and wear ostentatious chains. they're not millionaires pretending to be farmers, they're real-ass people with real-ass dreams. this is trash.

3.24.2007 91) "Good Directions," Billy Currington

"I was sittin' there sellin' turnips in a flatbed truck" WERE YOU? WERE YOU?!

93) "Teardrops on My Guitar," Tay Tay

I'm going to bring up my girl Jordan Pruitt because she provides a fascinating counterpoint to "Teardrops on My Guitar." Because honestly there isn't much separating the two women. Jordan Pruitt has the slightly better singing voice, Tay Tay had a defter handle on songwriting, but they’re pretty similar in all other respects. I think it helps that Tay Tay went country. Writing a song about one specific boy would've been laughed out of the pop world, but country is all about specificity. The worthlessness of "Good Directions" is now instructive -- he's not a farmer, he's specifically a turnip farmer. You don't go to the gas station to ask for directions, you go to the Mama Raymond's store under the big Coke sign. (Her name wasn't Mama Raymond but I don't care to look it up.) Likewise, "Teardrops on My Guitar" mentions that boy Drew. She's not just crying, she's crying while playing guitar. And because her first song was called "Tim McGraw" and "Picture to Burn" has a fiddle, this is a country song, even though this is pop as fuck, honestly one of the most redundant things in the world is the pop remix of this song. Which isn't to suggest that the only thing that kept Jordan Pruitt from mega-stardom is that she never picked up a banjo, of fucking COURSE it's not just that. Tay Tay is Tay Tay because a dozen people (including Tay Tay) created a plan to make Tay Tay Tay Tay, and it was executed flawlessly, not a hitch at all until Kim Kardashian said, "No, honey, let me record this call, trust me, you KNOW she's gonna wanna try some bullshit." Without knowing the grand plan for Jordan Pruitt, I believe that plan culminated with her getting a Hot 100 hit and everyone jumping for joy because they were so proud. But still: Jordan Pruitt wasn’t that far from being Tay Tay. “Teardrops on My Guitar” is a bad song, and "Outside Looking In" and "Jump to the Rhythm" were a little generic but somewhat jams, if just one little thing had changed I’m being hard on “Jump to the Rhythm” because that’s the birth of the titan and going easy on “Teardrops on My Guitar” because there’s no way a barely-famous Tay Tay doesn’t spend her free time self-searching, but, I mean, that's what life is, y'know? Martha MacIsaacs sells one of the five funniest lines in Superbad, but Emma Stone wins the Oscar for Best Actress.

95) "Please Don't Go," Tank

...So. Okay. Tank begins by saying that his girlfriend found a list of numbers in his car. That seems like a weird place to keep your list of numbers. Were you at least keeping them in the glove box? That wouldn't have been the safest place to keep that list, but hey, how often is your girl gonna need fast food napkins? Then he says his girl called all the ones he marked with a star, and OK, Tank, my man, my boy, that's a really fucking stupid thing you did. "Ah! What a nice session of sexual intercourse that was with my latest paramour! And now, as is custom, I shall mark the occasion by drawing a fun little star next to her name! I hope my girlfriend doesn't find this list of girls I think are hot with the ones I've fucked starred! That would be the end of the relationship!" And then he asks, "Fellas, tell me why, how come we're always doing wrong?" WE?! WHO IS THIS WE?! OH DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE IMPLICATE ME IN THIS ONE, TANK. THIS ONE'S ALL YOU, STARBOY. YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE OUT HERE TRYING TO RUN THE DUMBEST FUCKING GAME IMAGINABLE. It's like someone heard John Legend's "Number One" and said, "What if we made it completely serious? Tongue nowhere near cheek, no one winks at all, just a cheating jerkhole with zero redeeming qualities?" What a way to end this first entry. I thought this was just gonna be bad! Nope: notably bad!

So now, the Top 20 for 2007: 20) "Glamorous," by Fergie ft./Ludacris (1.27.2007) 19) "The Neighbor," by Dixie Chicks (3.17.2007) 18) "Outside Looking In," by Jordan Pruitt (2.24.2007) 17) "Like a Boy," by Ciara (3.17.2007) 16) "Grace Kelly," by MIKA (2.17.2007) 15) "Break 'Em Off," by Paul Wall ft./Lil' KeKe (3.10.2007) 14) "My Oh My," by The Wreckers (1.27.2007) 13) "Mr. Jones," by Mike Jones (1.27.2007) 12) "Settlin'," by Sugarland (2.17.2007) 11) "Movin' On," by Elliott Yamin (3.17.2007) 10) "U + Ur Hand," by P!nk (1.13.2007) 9) "Doe Boy Fresh," by Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire (1.20.2007) 8) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 7) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 6) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 5) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 4) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 3) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 2) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 1) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) It’s hard to say which year is better. I think the Top 5 of 2007 pummels the Top 5 of 2017; I love “Issues” and “Green Light” and “Despacito” and “iSpy” and “Run Up,” but like “Candyman” dawg. But 2017 so far maintains an A-/B+ level from 1-20, and 2007 falls apart after #11. “Glamorous” made the Top 20. If you pull a group of 78 random songs, and “Glamorous” can be said to have a place as one of the 20 best in that group, on the whole, you have a shitty group of songs, I don’t care how many versions of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” are in there. 2017 gets the edge, but we know 2007′s got a few classics headin’ our way. 2007 will deliver "Thnks fr the Mmrs,” “Stronger,” “International Player’s Anthem,” and High School Musical 2. All we know we’re getting from 2017 is 10 more Ed Sheeran songs.

(will 1997 and 1987 and all the other 7s make it to this party?) no because that sounds like a lot of work and frankly i’m not into that (isn’t this project borne out of an overabundance of free time tho) ...goddamnit i’m going to do it aren’t i