#been compared to a classical painting but also someone from the 60s

[miss-crazy-rose]

What’s the opposite of iPhone face? because I’ve been told multiple times I look like I don’t belong to this era 😭

[tsintotwo]

(Part 3/4)

3rd post talking about Tom Sturridge in his projects (Earlier: Parts 1 and 2)

Being Julia (2004)- Movie about a stage diva and her midlife crisis + resolution (affair w/ younger man, disillusion, value of family). Tom plays Julia's 17y/o son. He is 100% a classic upper class Brit boy in this- all white shirts, sensible haircut, and blinding good looks. Small role, but he's pitch-perfect. This is one of his earliest works (edit: his first role as a grownup actor, actually!), but you can't tell at all from the movie. Also, our boy has just always had a very nice voice, huh.

A Waste of Shame (2004)- Who are Shakespeare's sonnets really about? This BBC tv movie was a fictionalized exploration of that. It is on youtube...in Spanish- which, even if the dubbing wouldn't have thrown me off, I don't speak anyway. But someone very kindly uploaded all of Tom's scenes and that's what I watched. Shakespeare wrote a bunch of gay poems about a 'fair youth'- W.H. We don't know who this really was irl, but in the movie W.H. is earl Will Herbert, played by Tom. Now, this is what Shakespeare wrote: "A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted/Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion..." So, clearly they needed someone really, really pretty for this role. Tom says bet. Wouldn't say he embodied the androgynous vibe, but a VERY fair youth indeed. AND charming. I could totally see The Bard writing 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' about him. Not seeing the whole movie, I can't be sure, but it seemed like the guy playing Shakespeare (Rupert Graves)... didn't, uh, slay? I mean, Tom's switching it on (we all know what that's like) and his vibe is like 'meh'. We could have more chemistry (which was supposed to be the POINT). But, oh, well.

The Boat That Rocked/Pirate Radio (2009)- Man, a proper British comedy is such. a. DELIGHT!!! This movie made me laugh hysterically and lifted my heart in a way few things have recently. It's about a pirate(=unlicensed) radio station in the 60s that broadcast govt. unapproved content- from a boat. It has an ensemble cast, but Tom features pretty prominently- he's often the audience-POV character. Big names in the cast, and Tom was on par with every single one of them. Honestly, after a while I stopped seeing Tom and just saw 'Young Carl'- his character. And I loved Young Carl. Just- do yourself a favor and watch this movie, okay? (I wish Tom would do more comedies)

Effie Gray (2014)- About the (terrible) marriage of famous art critic John Ruskin and his wife Effie. Effie (Dakota Fanning) eventually falls in love with painter John Everett Millais- Tom in the movie. This movie... is a bit too straightforward imo, it could've been more nuanced (but then sometimes it's too subtle, to the point of making things vague). What I LOVED tho: loads of shots in this look like gorgeous old paintings. Anyway, about Tom: this is actually the movie where he felt most unlike Tom to me (well, except Sandman. I've racked up HOURS looking at this man at this point, and still when I see Morpheus, I just see Morpheus- non-human Dreamlord, not a human actor. Anyway). Tom as Everett looks different (handsome still ❤️) in period clothing and with a beard, but that's not it. He's... grounded in this. We see his quiet air of compassion and conflict, love blooming from kindness and sympathy. Zero sexy vibes, silent attraction, patience and respect. Just, so clean and pure *chef's kiss* (I will say tho, in usual Tom fashion we see every subtlest thing he feels on his face and eyes whereas Dakota is... blank a lot of times. Not the best performance from her.) The movie sort of has an open ending and I had to google this-but Effie and Everett irl ended up getting married, yay! (And had EIGHT children- all right babes!)

Skin (2019)- (Plot: What if Alexa was your grief counselor?) Tom's character is a wreck in this short film- he's gross, broken, and slowly killing himself. As the film requires, he's been shot very unflatteringly, and the camera is on him 100% of the time. So, at the end of the 11 minutes, when your heart is absolutely breaking for him, you know it's not because you were attracted to Tom, it's because he's just that good. Gosh, I watched this 3 times already. A little gem. (Watch here)

I think one more post and I can wrap this series up, 'cause all that's left is Tom's cameos, mostly. Then I might do a bonus ep with links to performances/interviews/fanvids that are worth looking at imo. We'll see. Till then.

[miyomiikonran]

Burn the Witch Personal Review

I know how this sounds, especially I never did smth like that, so just pls treat it more like bunch of thoughts and opinions on this new title from long-term fan of Bleach rather than some professionally done review. I watched all three episodes and for now I didn't have much time to read the manga (I have a lot of stuff to read for my studies so ;;") so I just went through stuff written on fan wiki. So beware! Spoilers ahead!

So anyway, new title from Tite Kubo. I could not know who's the author and I still would've guessed who it is. It has such a familiar vibe for me, it's a lot like Bleach for me in terms of humor, dialogues, character interactions and so on. Backgrounds also have this kind of similar vibe but I can't tell what's exactly causing it cus I'm no artist. Kubo in his glory days always had great backgrounds so that's all I'm able to say. I think he catched some breath after Bleach's ending and came back with new energy, so his skills are back too.

About characters. I'm glad he did two main female characters this time, even though both Noel and Ninny annoyed me through most of these ~60 minutes. I'm gonna say that's how it usually is before you get to know these characters better. Balgo annoyed me the most because he's typical perverted guy (which I'm really tired of) but with sweet dumny appearance (I'm here for it) so we'll see where will this character go further. Ninny's idol type, so I wasn't really excited at first, but I really liked her interactions with Macy, so I see chances for future development. Kinda the same with Noel and Balgo, they have some chances to get better through their influence on each other. Noel is kinda boring on her own most of the time, but her drive for money is sooo relatable for me right now.

My absolute favourite for now is Osushi, which kinda amused me, cus it's complete opposite compared with how I reacted to Kon at first, who also was sort of mascot in Bleach. I think Kubo has a thing for "seems cute but can kill you" type of mascot...

Let's adress the elefant in the room now. It's the same damn universe as Bleach. It blew my mind completely since I read about this series. It's the same universe (12 years after the war) and it has witches and dragons! Don't get me wrong, tbh I think it could work, it makes sense in it's own twisted kind of way. I just wish we were given any clues about existence of other "reverse worlds"/Soul Societies before this title came out. Cus it makes sense when you think about it. For me it looks like each country/culture (cus idk if each country wouldn't be too much) could have it's own kind of reverse world coexisting with human world, with it's magic, creatures and rules rooted in it's history, culture and beliefs. That's why suddenly we have these european-looking dragons and completely different approach to them- rather than kill them, humans are using them for their own gain, which for me makes sense for country that started industrial age and was first capitalistic-kind of system in the world. Obviously they would be like "ey, it's kinda a waste to kill them, maybe we could use them to make our life easier?". In Bleach it was all more about restoring and keeping balance between worlds, moral duty, honor and strict rules which makes sense (at least for me) in japanese society. Same with Shinigami and their powers. Other stuff like Quincy and Arrancars kinda throw off this kind of logic but well, I'm just trying to find some sense in this madness.

How's the plot then going, in such weird curricumstances? For me it could easily defend itself as independent idea and separate universe. If someone didn't knew Bleach and watched this I'm pretty sure it would be viewed almost the same for now. Will it have more connections to stuff we know from Bleach? Idk, I hope so, cus if not then it's just kinda using the nostalgia left by previous series. This world is surely builded the same, we have two coexisting worlds, one with common humans and the other with people being able to see and fight supernatural beings that endanger both of these worlds. We have the same kind of structure of power as well, at least for me. Wind Bind is new Gotei 13, this time with symbolism based on zodiak signs. Cool, it would probably suggest 12 divisions, but for now we know about only 8 but once again, we'll see.

Each division has it's own field of work, responsibilities and leader. They all look just as weird and eccentric as Gotei 13 when we first met them, so hello darkness my old friend, especially one lady looks like nazi-wannabe again (Quincy I'm looking at you!). For now we only saw Bruno in action who's division is a fighting type, tasked with extermination of dangerous dragons. He's got very cool design and I adore style of magic he uses because I never saw anyone use spray paint for drawing magical symbols before. Very modern-looking guy and I'm here for it, especially he looks like Grimmjow's younger bro. In general this universe is on our typical technology level with smartphones and stuff everywhere, which is suprising to see having in mind whole traditionally japanese looking enviroment from original Soul Society. About the rest we barely know anything so well. We'll see, once again.

Do I see any clear villain in sight? Nah, not for now. For now we only know about 8 dangerous legendary dragons based on common fairy tales. Interesting concept, but I would like to see some classic villian too. However, we already got the same kind of lesson that Bleach served us- authorities cannot be easily trusted either, as their judgement also can be too strict, cruel and subcjetive without many possibilities to oppose them by avarage person. I smell more future drama in this topic. Especially we once again got elderly boss who looks similar to Yamamoto from Bleach.

One thing that kinda dissapointed me was music. Bleach made me used to very climatic, often dramatic soundtracks, kinda dark-sounding most of the time. Openings were mostly very good too, while here I barely noticed any music at all. Animation didn't really leave me in awe either, only fights seemed interesting and magic was nicely animated. But it's kinda boring compared to very dynamic animation in Bleach. First two episodes made me think of first two arcs of Bleach but it's been over 15 years! ;-;"

In the end, will I watch more? Yeah, for sure. I got very excited to see something new from Kubo, I'm rooting for him and his new series to be less damaging for his health and mental state so this time he'll have means to develop and finish it properly, ideally without more conflicts with Shounen Jump. If he'll play it right with connections to Bleach it might get every good and bring back old fanbase, maybe even make people forgive him completely for Bleach's rushed ending. I see he already got some lessons from that experience, as now he decided to publish chapters in small batches rather than weekly. For me it's good solution that may help him keep his sanity intact. I'm willing to wait if it means he'll get back to his fomer skills and glory because I loved Bleach with my whole heart. If only anime production will be okay with such work dynamic then sure, great. I hope music and animation will get better overtime, maybe with more people getting interested they'll be able to spend more time and effort on it. I'm waiting for more characters to appear for more screentime as well, despite what I said about weird looking leaders of Wind Bind. Kubo proved he can make interesting and unique looking characters before, as well as create engaging villians and fights that fans are waiting for for months or years even. Maybe he even learnt a thing or two from plot holes that happend before. We'll see, I'm hopefull and willing to see where this series will be going c:

[dayables]

4 and Shin? That's a dark one, but you write him well so I'd trust you with it. If you want something lighter instead, 17 for Shin!

Thank you for asking this! As you can see, I got into a very deep ramble about his life pre-death game and it doesn’t really tie in but I’ve kept it there :)  The last few parapraghs are the actual answers ahaha. Play some sad music in those paragrapths because I nearly cried with halloween music in the background.    4) What they would do if they had one month to live.   If Shin had one month left to live? We see it in the game kind of. Or at least kind of. Obviously imitating your ‘scary friend’ most likely abuser to try and turn everyone against your biggest threat isn’t going to work in real life. 

What the game and his 0.0% score does tell us (or heavily shove in our direction so we infer it) is that Shin is petrified of certain death to the point of desperation.

I do believe/headcanon that he is a very logical person. Almost everything he does is backed up by logic in the death game except for his last moments because screw logic that’s never worked before.  (The opposite of Keiji who’s likely very emotional until his potential last moments but this isn’t about him). So the question is, when did Shin’s last moments begin for him?  As the player, it’s when it’s that final choice between him and Kanna. To Shin this is likely a very different response. His last moments start the very second he gets told he’s doomed to die. Almost all of Shin’s choices in the game are emotional. Trusting Sara or at least earning her trust is the logical choice here. Making yourself her enemy because you are scared is the emotional one. He just lies to himself on the basis that she’s untrustworthy. Which, you can trick yourself into believing is logical.  It triggers a kind of flight or fight response in all our characters when they realise they can die here. All the cast barr Shin choose to fight and try and escape. Shin chooses the flight option here. Nothing he does actually prevents his death in the end. He just runs away from the inevitable doom. 

 I am once again inferring by comparing him to rest of the cast the death is a deep rooted trauma (and I definitely have thoughts on why). While the concept of death is one that scares everyone, no one seems to revel in it the way Shin does. He is living an incredibly safe life. A free lance programmer (by the sounds of it)  which earns an average of £60 an hour. He has a side job at a convenience store (that wasn’t a lie). He doesn’t leave his apartment much meaning he doesn’t have much of a social life. Shin is in a position in life where it’ll be near impossible to hurt him. Obviously he isn’t earning 60 quid an hour, but he has the potential too. Once he’s set up and successful, he’ll be able to die old. Alone, maybe not happy, but old.  For a guy likely in his early to mid twenties, things are bound to change but only as much as he lets them. From one person who will happily spend all their life in their own company to another, Shin isn’t going to change that. Not when he’s too scared to let someone past arms width and will avoid doing so. By the time he gets his game together and his skinny self to therapy it’ll likely be too late to make the same connections he has the chance too at his current age.  It’s not emotional because even the most introverted of introverts desires a life all alone. It’s a logical one for the fears and life he has. I don’t think that means he isn’t happy. It just thinks there’s a potential that he could have been happier. 

For Midori to have gotten as close as he was and no one to pull up the red flags his friends either didn’t care or didn’t exist. Most likely the latter seeing as he is very much in the process of mourning three years after his friends death. He likely wasn’t close enough to his parents to feel he could go to them over something as silly as Midori’s death. In the aftermath, Shin will be confused and muddled. In some ways, he’ll be elevated because he is free, he can move on. In other ways he’ll be lost, devastated and empty. Shin will also have a semblance of independence back. He doesn’t think he shows enough gratitude to his parents for materialistic items. Midori’s abuse was likely emotional or verbal. It probably consisted of vague threats, put downs, anger, power dynamics and a shrug at Shin’s emotions. I’m in no way a professional but after years of this Shin is going to think his emotions are something he should be able to handle himself, something he might not be able to do if he started to repress them in his teens. Shin likely has a warped sense of independence. Instead of being free from others control, he’ll likely think it means he can’t get help and must deal with everything alone. 

Being told that his death is round the corner strips two things that he values most away from him. He now has zero control over his life and worse, it ends with him dyeing. Shin would grasp for straws to have that independence back and therefore escape his own death. If he couldn’t get his independence back then he’ll try and avoid the end outcome. 

His last month would be a goose chase to avoid death. There’d be a list of everything he has to do. Fuck his jobs, fuck debt he needs to get to the hospital. Get checked up! Make sure he’s well. He’d do it everyday. Does he have enough medicine? Wet wipes, stock up on healthy food, hand sanitizer? Does he have enough hand sanitizer? Make sure his room is squeaky clean, don’t let anyone in, don’t answer the phone. Bolt the windows and live off ramen and debt for the rest of the month. Beanie on, beanie off, what is he going to die from? Has he prevented any possible cause? He’s forgotten to call his parents. That’s fine because he shouldn’t be dyeing anyway. It’s logical. It’s all logical. This is not his fear of death speaking through everything he is doing is logical! Now he just needs to figure out what’s causing this all? How did that person know? Then on the last day. He’d just give up. He’d finally pick up that phone and call his parents. He’d thank them and explain. He’d apologize for the debt because he’s swimming in it then he’d hang up. Shin would then proceed to cry in bed all day and trying to sleep so he just doesn’t wake up.  Then, while it’s a tragedy, I think he’d accept it. I don’t think he ever really thought he had a chance but his emotions drove him round and round in circles. Maybe he would regret his whole life and look back on it all. In a none death game scenario Shin seems like a brooder. He doesn’t have Kanna to live for so he has no reason to push forward. I think in the end he’d reach the conclusion his life was pretty pointless. Just as he’d slip from consciousness I imagine he’d think of Midori. Nearly everything we know about Shin seems to revolves about Midori . We, the player, never know him before the guy entered his life. That guy has a big impacts in his life and in a world where that was the only person to leave such a big mark? I think he’d go back to Midori. Especially with nothing to distract him from his mourning. 

It’s quite sad really. He lets his fear control him too much. Midori controls him too much and they’re both aware of that fact. But in the short, Shin would try and avoid his death. Hell he’ll likely die of exhaustion or caffeine overdose

His ending in the main game, I think that’s the best way Shin could have gone at that age. Dying for Kanna and letting go of his cynicism. 

Ending this off with 17 because I need that jokeness now, after all that. 

17) What would they sing at Karaoke? 

Everyone expects Shin to like bang out with some Beyonce or something. Maybe one of those silly little disney parodies. Everyone would make a joke about what he should sing because he’s indecisive as hell. 

Keiji Kai and all of those mature adults suggest Single Ladies,  Mr. Brightside,  Fireworks, Wannabe because classic Karoke songs you actually have to be able to sing when Shin 100% can’t? Count them in! 

Midori would suggest something embarrassing he knew wouldn’t even be funny to watch. Just painful. 

Gin, Sara, Reko and Alice are snickering behind their hands as they suggest Poor Unfourtunate Souls,  How Bad Can I Be (Alice ended up doing that one), The oogie boogie song and the price Ali reprise. 

When he refuses Sara refuses to let him get away with not being painted as some corny villian and dedicates her singing of Cruella De Vil to him.

Then Kanna taps on his shoulder and tells him what to sing and A: It’s Kanna’s suggestion B: It’s not and a bonus C if he’s drunk: He gets to whack a certain police officer and teacher with a hockey stick. 

And my inner theatre Kid shines through as he I say Shin sings Revolting Children and can’t get his letters write, drunk or sober. 

‘R e v o t l i n !’  instead of ‘ R E V O L T I N G’ 

‘S P L L!’ instead of ‘ S P E L’ 

‘TOO LATE FOR YOU?’ Instead of  ‘ 2-L-8-4-U ‘

I kid you not I have knows this song for years and I still struggle. You can not do that spelling rhythm first time. 

Also the lines. The lines!   We will become a screaming hoard.//Take out your hockey sticks and use it as a sword.// Never again will we be ignored.//We'll find out where the chalk is stored// And draw rude pictures on the board.

It’s such a childish song but it’s so hard. He struggles and struggles and one day he will get it because it’s so simple and why can’t he do it roght! Also, it suits him. Sue me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PXm34OBP8

[mellicose]

Doctor ... WTF?

An impassioned rant about the steady decline of Doctor Who, the trajectory of the Thirteenth Doctor, and the righteous indignation after The Timeless Children, not only as a Whovian, but as a woman-

I love how certain people are spinning The Timeless Children as being good, yet the BBC has released (2)TWO statements basically telling fans the following:

“Doctor Who is a beloved long-running series and we understand that some people will feel attached to a particular idea they have of the Doctor, or that they enjoy certain aspects of the programme more than others. Opinions are strong and this is indicative of the imaginative hold that Doctor Who has – that so many people engage with it on so many different levels.

We wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers and we feel that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction writing. What was written does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards – it just adds new layers and possibilities to this ongoing saga.”

Creative freedom, huh? Ask Joe Hill about it. Or Gaiman. The writers, including Chibnall, are only free to do what the Beeb and the other show investors tell them. 

They go on:

“We have also received many positive reactions to the episode’s cliff-hanger. There are still a lot of questions to be answered, and we hope that you will come back to join us and see what happens, but we appreciate that it’s impossible to please all of our viewers all of the time and your feedback has been raised with the programme’s Executive Producer." 

Uglylaughing.gif

There is a huge, monumental difference between 'not being able to please everyone all at the same time' and basically making a whole fandom, New and Classic, young and old, come together with the same level of disgust and disappointment.

I also find the people arguing "Canon? What canon?" about the Doctor now being the Lord and Savior of the Shining World of the Seven Systems to be foolish at best, and disingenuous at worst.

No canon?? So what have I been steeping myself in for years  - a vague approximation of a tale? Please. Of course, writers have embellished and alluded, but tampering with the unspoken but well-known 'no touch' rule about the Doctor's origin is ... well, it's canon, in and of itself...

...which Chibnall completely wrecked, and I can't imagine why. Hubris? By all accounts, he was a fan. I thought Moffat was a dick for bringing back Gallifrey, but now, to me, my disappointment then vs now is like comparing a fart to a shitstorm.

Please excuse the scatological references, but I'm using it deliberately. It is a swirling turd, which I and many others wish we could flush down and forget forever.

In another RadioTimes article - which basically is the BBC - amongst the usual apologetics, Huw Fullerton drops this little gem:

“The glory days of David Tennant et al were in a different TV landscape, and if the Tenth Doctor touched down now it seems unlikely he’d command anything close to the ratings he did over a decade ago.”

Yeah, you can all take a break to have a hearty laugh. Or throw up. Whichever. Did they just hint that, basically, the incarnation of the Doctor who continues to get as much love (if not more) than Four, who still consistently gets thousands of butts in seats in conventions worldwide, and has made the BBC hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling in merchandising “wouldn’t command the ratings he did in 2008?”

As Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic said in his response to this article: “Actually, if David Tennant had been given as many chances as Jodie Whittaker, it would’ve had Game of Thrones-level ratings.”

And I agree. Not because I’m a Tenth Doctor stan, but because it’s just ... categorically true. His seasons consistently got average rating of 7.5 to 8 million viewers - and this in a time before BBCiPlayer, so 7-day catch up ratings meant nothing. It was butts on sofas then, which, to me, speaks of a massive, sustained interest.

But Huw goes on to say that such things mean nothing. And that the huge, telling sink in both overnight and 7-day ratings between the 11th and 12th seasons, and the dismal 4.69m 7 day ratings for The Timeless Children - the lowest for a NewWho finale since its reboot - shouldn’t be taken as a loss of interest from the fandom.

Then, pray tell goodman, what does it mean? Does it mean that fans are following the Thirteenth Doctor’s adventures in spirit? Ratings are tanking. Outside of the precious few who blindly tweet and write articles about the show solely based on its now female protagonist, people are notoriously furious, especially after the execrable season finale.

Yet BBC’s Piers Wenger, who once produced the show, says “I don’t think it’s been in better health, editorially. I think it’s fantastic and I think that, the production values obviously have never been better.”

Right. Okay. So, putting Tom Ford makeup on a pig makes it haute couture, huh? The writing is appalling, and after two excruciatingly painful to watch seasons, the Doctor has failed to appear - all I’ve seen is borderline sociopathic navel gazing from an ‘alien’ wearing a pastel duster.

How dare you besmirch the unfailingly cool reputation of the long coat, Chibnall? Jodie? How?? 

I will not let someone piss on my head and call it rain ... ‘because it’s a woman.’ Assuming I’ll accept it just adds insult to injury. Who do they think we are, as female fans? I will not cosign garbage to further an agenda that is ultimately damaging one of my favorite things ever, Doctor Who. I agree that politics, and a positive moral, have always been a part of DW, but at it’s best the writing was so good that it only added to the entertainment. Now, the BBC is feeding us all the bitter pill, without the kindness to hide it in a piece of tasty cheese. It gives the impression that they believe we are already so indoctrinated that we no longer need artifice!

Well, not only am I not indoctrinated, but I refuse to ingest.

I refuse to allow people to silence me because the Doctor is now a woman, and so am I. That, I shouldn’t say anything, or complain, because it’s an act of rebellion on womankind, not only in entertainment, but in general. Well, to that I say ... er ... I disavow.

Disavow. Disavow.

And this from a woman who once criticized Peter Davison for saying that casting a woman was “a vital loss of a role model for boys,” taking it as a sexist comment when in truth, it was just a relevant narrative concern about gender-swapping the traditionally male-presenting Time Lord. Just changing a character from male to female doesn’t do anything but demonstrate a tone-deafness about the emotional and physical differences between men and women, which exist whether we want to address them or not. This is why genderswap reboots are terrible. They are trying to further the feminist agenda, while surreptitiously painting traditional, every day femininity as weakness, and something to be avoided at all costs. I reject the modern Hollywood representation of what a ‘strong woman’ is meant to be. I can be clever, yet sensitive enough to comfort a friend when they confide their fears about a cancer relapse. I can be funny, and not at the expense of the man in the room. I can be brave, but not at the expense of my friends. The mind boggles as to why they thought their current tack with the Doctor was going to be any good. The Doctor is a woman, but more importantly, she’s a Timelord. Where are they? Is the alien that we’ve known and loved for the last 60 years truly gone away, and Thirteen is from a whole different timeline? If so, I don’t want to know her. 

And it breaks my heart.

Why continue to support a corporation who thinks of me, the fan, as no more than a heartless, thoughtless consumer? A drone? A sheep who has no conscious idea of what I like or need?

I’m done. It’s been two seasons of absolute dreck, with absolutely no sign of a course-correction due to the overwhelmingly negative response. I may be many things, but I’m no masochist - even in the name of love. And Chibnall, knowing that many fans would go back to the classic stories to cleanse ourselves, went back to the beginning and took a giant shit there too. 

Oh, the cleverness! the absolute schadenfreude of not only tampering, but rewriting the Doctor’s origins! I suppose that tells me he truly was once a fan. But no longer. Even if it turns out that the Master is as full of crap as Chibnall and it’s all an orchestrated lie, I don’t care anymore. Every inexplicable, terrible thing that happened before has already exhausted my patience with the narrative.

As veteral DW writer and script editor Terrance Dicks said:

If you’re concentrating on putting forth a political message, rather than on doing a really good show, I think there is a danger, maybe, you can do both but it would be hellish difficult, and I think that there’s maybe a danger that the show wouldn’t as be as good as it could or should be, because you’re not looking at the right aims.”

It seems like all that has been lost in time. Big corporations are buying up beloved science fiction properties, and systematically destroying them by trying to mix their politics into the mythos. [see ‘the fandom menace’]

I say, don’t support things that make you unhappy, in the name of nostalgia. That’s how they continue to upset us, while lining their pockets with our hard earned money. Complaining amongst ourselves, writing emails, or making angry Youtube videos no longer works anyway. Now is the time to just ... let it go. No more special edition DVDs, novelizations, or pretty action figures. Hit them in the pocketbook. We will still have fond memories of better times. I will not let them hijack, retcon, and retool them too.

There is a telling paragraph hidden in the depths of the article, which makes my DW fangirl sink:

It’s not as simple as “the ratings are down so Doctor Who will be cancelled,” as for the publicly-funded BBC there’s an interesting question about exactly what ratings are for beyond bragging rights. Obviously they need to make TV that people want to watch – but which people?

Not us, Huw. That’s who.

[purplesurveys]

1034

survey by tater-tots What is a fruit that you might eat in the morning? Hahahaha. That’s a pass for me; I can’t imagine regularly eating fruit at any set time of the day.

Do you enjoy any food combinations that others might consider to be weird? I like to eat fish with mayonnaise, which was always normal in our household but I realized was weird when I first saw the horrified expressions on my friends’ faces when they saw me use the combination. I like mayonnaise with a lot of other foods as well, which a lot of people generally find weird.

What is a green vegetable that you enjoy eating? Broccoli and asparagus.

Name something you might find in a salad. In my salad, you’ll always find tuna sashimi in it heh.

What is your favorite type of sandwich? Anything that’s like an Eggs Benedict or Monte Cristo. 

Which condiment do you use the most often? Mayo, for sure. Banana ketchup too. I also like sriracha sauce but my dad hasn’t been buying a new bottle of it for a while. 

Name a chocolate bar that you enjoy eating. It’s called Whittaker’s - just not sure what country it hails from; maybe Australia? - and I like their peanut butter variant. Google also told me it’s a New Zealander brand.

What is a meat that you do not eat - ever. Dog or cat.

Are you lactose intolerant, or have any other sort of food allergies? I’m mildly lactose intolerant but I ignore it because a lot of my favorite foods use dairy. Other than that, no food allergies.

What was the last food that you burnt your mouth on? Just plain rice, haha. I had been extremely hungry and I just wanted to dig in; but I ended up spitting it back out.

Which brand of soup do you eat? I don’t regularly have soup, much less buy canned brands of it. 

What are some flavors of ice cream that your enjoy? Cookies and cream, mint chocolate, coffee, chocolate chip cookie dough, queso real.

What is the best type of cookie, in your opinion? I like keeping things classic when it comes to cookies, and I’ve always been perfectly happy with chocolate chip cookies :)

Would you rather have popcorn, pretzels, or chips as your salty snack? Chips. I dislike the other two as I only like the softer, doughy version of pretzels.

Have you thought about going on a diet & actually went through with it? No.

--

survey by pinkchocolate

When you woke up today, was there anything on your mind? Kinda. I felt sad and I was aware of it instantly, compared to most days where the sadness will take a while to build.

Who was the last person you interacted with for the first time? Literally speaking, maybe the barista at Starbucks who took my temperature at the entrance before I was let in the store. I interacted with her yesterday.

What colour was the wrapper of the last snack you ate? White. It’s more of a tiny bag than a wrapper, though.

Do you have a favourite mug to drink from? What does it look like? Yeah, I’ve since claimed my mom’s mug for myself. It’s a copper mug with the Starbucks label on it. It looks super minimalist which I appreciate.

What was the last thing you used, that came in a spray can? It was a Lysol spray.

What colour is your favourite bra? Don’t really have one.

Who was the last person you went to for advice about something? I think it was Andi. I’ve been going to them a lot for help, advice, extra sanity, etc. lately. If it hasn’t been for them I probably would’ve left a few months back.

Have you had a deep conversation with anyone lately? Yes. I finally met up with Gab yesterday to discuss a lot things, iron some stuff out, figure out where to go from here.

What was the last compliment you recall receiving from someone? I’m not sure, I haven’t been receiving any.

And the last compliment you gave to someone else? It was most likely a compliment for Andi on how helpful they’ve been to me.

What kind of bread did you eat most recently? Flatbread.

What was the last sound you heard, that you found pleasant? We were watching a mass livestream earlier and I was delighted when they played the closing song.

How many books do you think there are in your house? Take a rough guess. I would guess around 60, the overwhelming bulk of them mine.

Of all the books you own, which do you think has the most pages in it? It would definitely either be Gone with the Wind or Les Miserables, but I’m not sure which one is thicker.

^ And how many pages is that? I checked both of my copies and they’re soooo close – GWTW has 1,440 pages while Les Mis has 1,463.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema? What did you think of it? Knives Out. I went to the mall yesterday and the cinemas were still closed, so it’s not like I’d be able to watch new movies at theatres anyway. Anyway, I’ve been vocal about the movie enough times on my surveys but I didn’t enjoy it. Whodunnits were never my cup of tea, but Gab had wanted to see it and I didn’t want to make her watch the film alone.

In the last book you read, what was the main character's name? Haven’t been reading.

What was the last song you heard, that meant something to you? Lose by Niki.

How many people do you know whose name begins with Z? I can only recall one such person at the moment; it’s one of my mom’s aunts who also doubled as a principal sponsor for my mom and dad’s wedding.

What do you expect to be doing at this time tomorrow? Maybe doing my embroidery (my package finally arrived!!) or surveys or watching Start-Up, because tomorrow will be a holiday :)

--

survey by luckforlemmy

Did you start listening to more Michael Jackson after his death? I can remember that there was definitely a brief period after his death that I caught up with his discography and listened to MJ nearly everyday; I read up on him and his life as well. 11 year old me figured he must’ve been an interesting figure because of the big reception around his death, so I wanted to know the reasons behind it.

When was the last time that you played hide and seek? I can vividly remember the day when Nina and I played hide and seek when the house was newly-built and still devoid of furniture, back in maybe ‘07 or ‘08. I’m fairly certain that was the last time I played hide and seek.

Who was your first celebrity crush, if you can remember? It was a tie between Ashley Tisdale and Zac Efron, though the older I get the more I’ve been convinced that I ‘crushed’ on Zac only because I was surrounded by girls who went crazy over him in school. I’m pretty sure my first real celebrity crush was Ashley, hahaha.

Do you worry about money? Yeah, especially now. I can’t even enjoy my first paycheck because most of it’s gonna go to Christmas presents, but oh well; at least I can finally buy gifts for my loved ones who’ve always gotten me presents.

Have you ever had to beg for a second chance? Kind of, when I was trying to convince Gab to let our relationship have another shot four years ago. Beg is a strong word for what I actually did, though. It was more of me pitching the idea, not begging.

When was the last time that you sent an actual letter through the mail? I don’t think I even ever did that, not even when I was younger and snail mail was still kind of a thing.

Are you excited to return to school? There’s nothing to return to anymore. Unless I decided to take up a post-grad course in the future, I’m done with school.

Do you hate Internet abbreviations? It can just feel a bit jarring when they’re used excessively in a single sentence, but I honestly don’t mind it for the most part. It’s understandable especially now that most, if not all, of my interactions whether personal or for work happen online.

What was the last insult you gave out? I was never really the roasting type of person, not even towards my friends.

What'd you last look up on YouTube? Hahaha I looked up ‘skynwallz.’ I was looking for the episode of Rhett and Link’s vlogs where they painted the rooms of their offices in the color of their entire person – hair, eyes, and skin. They were joking about starting a new business for it called Skynwallz, so that’s what I looked up.

Are you texting someone really awesome right now? No, I prefer to be alone today.

Do you know when to be serious and when you shouldn't be? Er sure, it’s not that hard.

Do you think that you're funny? I like my sense of humor, yeah, but I know it’s not always going to translate to everybody’s tastes. For example, I’m still figuring out the dynamic in the team I was put in at work, so I can’t make the same jokes that I would normally say with my co-interns with whom I have a more comfortable relationship.

Have you ever sent a secret to Post Secret? I don’t know what this is, so no.

What movie do you really want to see in theatres right now? They aren’t showing anything at the moment. A movie I want to see badly, though, is Ammonite.

Have either of your parents shown affection for you today? My mom made breakfast for us, if it counts. She also gives each of her kids a kiss during the peace-giving portion at mass, so there’s that as well.

What's the last thing that you sang out loud? I watched Start Up before this survey and was humming to the song that was being played at the end of the episode. I couldn’t sing along to it because it was in Korean, but I knew the melody so I hummed.

Is there a word that you always misspell? Rhythm is one of my worst enemies for sure. I also have a love-hate relationship with accommodate.

What was the last thing that you bought that someone else benefited from? I met up with Gabie yesterday and bought her her favorite meal from Yabu to break the ice – menchi katsu with brown rice. I originally got mozzarella sticks for myself but when we got to talking, she mentioned her sisters at one point; I remembered how much I miss them, so I gave up my food and told her to just give my food to her sisters since I hadn’t touched it yet anyway.

Has someone ever made you a really great mix CD? Andi gave me one before she made the flight to New Zealand 10 years ago to permanently live there. I believe I still have it, but I’m just not sure where it currently is.

Have you ever been on Omegle.com? Yes, when I was a teenager and it was new.

Did you talk to someone cool there? Not really; most seem to exit our chat after we did the whole asl thing. I also avoided the webcam option because my anxiety for video calls has always been present.

What song reminds you of your best friend? Any song by The Maine.

Who was the last person to hit on you? Some creep on Facebook.

What's on the paper nearest you? It’s the guide for my embroidery kit. It tells me what stitches to do and the colors of thread to use for the different parts of the template I was provided with.

Do you have a set of lyrics that you really love? From Paramore’s Pool: “As if the first cut wasn’t deep enough, I dove in again ‘cause I’m not into giving up Could’ve gotten the same rush from any lover’s touch, But why get used to something new When no one breaks my heart like you” I scream those lyrics every time they come on. I know I often showed the good, shiny side of my relationship on these surveys; but it was very much toxic at a lot of points and those lyrics - and that song - served as a nest for me, something that told me someone understands how I sometimes felt about my own relationship.

Did you get an A in your last English class? I got a 1.25 instead of a perfect 1.00, but I think that’s still equivalent to an A so yes.

What did you last use scissors for? Cutting thread.

Did you ever secretly hate a friend of yours that thought you liked them? That makes me sound shitty lol, but yeah I’ve acted nicely to people I don’t particularly like.

What do you think of when I say "boat"? That episode of Friends where Joey bought himself a boat at an auction; and Canadian accents.

Would you ever get a tattoo sleeve? Nope. I planned on getting one as a teenager, but I grew out of that phase.

Do you know any really fake people? Yep. I think everyone’s got to be at some point.

What does the last blanket you used look like? It’s pink and has multi-colored polka dots on it.

Do you have appreciation for graffiti? Sure, especially if it’s for political purposes (that I agree with).

Why don't you drive? I do. I just have done it a lot less because I have had little need for driving and traveling to places throughout the pandemic.

Does it annoy you when your printer runs out of ink? I think we have the kind of printer that never runs out of ink, but I’m not exactly sure about the terminologies or how the technology works. I let my sister do the printing hahaha.

Have you ever drank anything from a thermos? Yes, mostly water and coffee.

When was the last time you played in the snow? Never.

Do you know any ignorant people? Sure, mostly Gen X-ers and Boomers.

What is the coolest name you've ever heard? Thylane.

What did you last argue with someone about? Relationship stuff. It wasn’t a full-blown argument, but when Gab and I talked yesterday it was natural for us to disagree on a few points.

Is there anyone that you dislike for no real reason? Hmm, I don’t think so. If I feel that strongly about someone, I usually have a reason otherwise it wouldn’t be fair to them.

Have you had a good day? It was okay; it was nice. I got to do my embroidery hoop art thing, got to watch a couple episodes of Start Up, played with Cooper, and now I’m doing these surveys and am planning to continue my embroidery later. It’s nice to feel productive about non-work things :)

Are you going to have a good night? I hope.

[mysmedrabbles]

RFA + V as Senior Citizens

requested: by anonymous

a/n: this is?? a super cute ask?? totally seems like the sequel to an old MC lmao

warnings: n/a

-young mod alex

Jumin

-distinguished gentleman through and through

-he’s the type of man that ages gracefully, i hc him to look kind of like eugenes dad (for anyone who watches the try guys)

-he’s faithful to his spouse until the day he dies, and provides the best care for his children, especially supporting them no matter what their passions are

-even though physically the age still has taken a toll on him, the crows feet and laugh lines only prove that he’s led a good life

-he doesn’t believe in “old people activities”

-would rather die than play bingo, he does however enjoy the odd game of mahjong, and even the occasional board game, but only when he’s playing with his kids (however he’s ruthless and doesn’t go easy on them)

-he teaches the kids how to play chess

-his sense of fashion never changes, always sporting a crisp suit and his classic striped dress shirt

-he starts collecting italian shoes as a hobby once he reaches 60, and he’s never been so proud of a collection

-resigns as CEO and passes on the company not to his children, but to the most qualified prospect, changing his ideas on nepotism, now wholeheartedly believing in hard work and working your way up

-you can see the change in him post marrying you, as more and more magazines claim he’s gone “soft” in his old age, but in reality he doesn’t fear the public eye and although sometimes he struggles with emotional blocks, with you by his side he can handle anything

Jaehee

-she’s the anime grandma that chases the troublemakin’ young’uns out of her shop with a broom

-very wholesome old lady, she never gives up her cafe, and although Jumin offers to help her expand her business, she refuses, insisting that she wants it to be family owned

-she teaches your guys’ kids and grandkids how to bake, and at first she seems like she has no patience, trying to discipline them, but you catch her smiling at your first grandchild, a 3 year old boy who's hands are covered with flour as he claps vigorously, childish wonder as flour poofs in a magical cloud

-she always continues to love and support zens work and shows, but her interests start to move on once she reaches her late forties

-she had to stop drinking coffee because her blood pressure got dangerously high, so she moves on to drinking tea

-having a little garden in your backyard where the two of you grow different flowers and herbs to make and experiment with new tea leaves

-she’s sweet, but also retains her businesslike formality and becomes a respected member of the World for Women Entrepreneurs Organization, which she puts down as the first members of the RFA party every year

-cute old lesbian couple, going to every pride parade together and holding hands on the street because, even though she may have aged, her judo skills haven't

Yoosung

-sweet old man, the kind that will be there for every single family reunion, holiday, birthday and will spoil the kids rotten

-he buys a rocking chair to put on the porch, first ironically but he’s quick to change his mind, buying another one in order for the two of you to sit outside together, watching from the porch as your kids play in the yard

-he never loses his passion for cooking, and all the neighborhood kids, even if they aren't your own, line up for Grandpa Kims cooking

-the two of you essentially adopt the whole street of kids

-he stops dying his hair blonde, letting the brown grow back in

-he loves telling the story of how the two of you met, to the point where your kids will groan whenever he starts talking

-never really stops playing video games, and of course teaches all your guys’ kids how to play, however he gets extremely disappointed when your youngest chooses books over games (in a joking way)

-he’s the kind elder that might never really have “wisdom” but he’ll always make you feel better if you have a problem

-by the time the two of you reach 70, your house has become a place for stray animals and kids, not wanting anyone to feel the loneliness that he had when he was younger

Seven

-he never really gets past his trauma, although living with it becomes easier

-saeyoung never loses his childish sense of humor and happiness, making his the strangest elder on the block

-he’s the one all the kids want to have ice cream with

-he retires fairly early compared to the rest, saying that he needed time to focus on his family and on his life for once

-he ages well, but makes the biggest deal out of it when his hairline starts receding

-because of stress, his hair starts greying early, and he refuses to leave the bunker for a week straight, you having to coax his dramatic ass out by hiding all the HBC

-has crippling back pain and has to start using a cane by his mid forties. of course, everyone in the rya makes fun of him for it, but he just waves it threateningly at yoosung, laughing along

-takes daily walks with you to the park, over the lake and bridge, around the cherry blossom tree and back home

-he strives to be there for his children and grandchildren, loving and supporting them in a way his parents never did

-continues to play pranks and crack jokes throughout his life

-every wedding anniversary he decorates the bunker like a space station and you dance to every frank sinatra song ever recorded

-on your 60th wedding anniversary you take him to KARI (Korean Aerospace Research Institute) to look around, inspect the models, check calculations and try the zero gravity machine, and he cries

Zen

-does this man age? not necessarily

-he never stops acting, continuing to rise as televisions most popular actor, but in the end he moves back to theatre, where his passion truly lies

-you quit as his manager at some point to go follow your dreams, and he lets you know that he’s with you every step of the way no matter what

-he doesn’t become more humble as he ages, and can often be seen telling his kids about his amazing adventures from when he was younger

-his laugh lines do get incredibly deep, which he struggles with for a while until you finally step up and tell him that all it means is that he lived well, that he had a good time on this godforsaken planet and that he had a few good laughs

-the energy is broken when you poke your finger in his laugh line, giggling to yourself

-he loosens up on the strict diet, letting himself eat more sweets and fatty foods, but his stance on exercising stays the same

-the storyteller of the family, always calling the grandkids out to the backyard to tell them incredible stories of monsters and knights in shining armor and the beautiful princess

-domesticity out the roof

-doesn’t actually officially retire, but leaves the industry while he’s ahead, getting to enjoy his last few decades surrounded by a family he chose to make

-surprisingly he takes up crochet, likes the meticulous design and patience needed for it, even though he has none, its a good way to teach himself to be more patient

-refuses a cane and or walker his whole life and would “never be caught dead in one”

-at some point he lets his hair grow out all the way, not leaving the rat tail, rather just having long hair

-because of his good genes and extreme self care, he doesn’t lose much of his hair, to which he is grateful to. those wrinkles though....

V

- V, starts losing his sight because of age: ah shit here we go again

-he’s kind, the type of senior that will always help someone out, and picks up trash off of the ground

-volunteers at the local garden, helping with the sunflowers in particular

-never stops painting, insisting that he must paint you and any possible children at every stage of yours and their lives

-the trauma of Rikas abuse left him scarred, but he copes with it, going to therapy until the day he eventually dies

-cute old married couple number two, its impossible to go anywhere without hearing “V and his spouse,” the two of you are a package deal, his life would never have been the same without you, and you would never want to be anywhere else except besides him

-as similar of age as you guys may be to the RFA, the two of you absolutely adopt them, and as all your families expand, V makes it his mission to invite everyone Jumin and his spouse, Jaehee with hers etc etc and their respective children and children spouses,, grandchildren,,,

-he doesn’t talk about his past much, but is always willing to listen to the younguns problems and impart his knowledge

-the older he gets, the more sweaters he owns. is also partial to wearing suspenders over said sweaters

-he begins to fall in love with the environment the older he gets, ultimately starting multiple foundations to save the bees, oceans and various endangered species

-becomes a UN ambassador for a good few years, but resigns due to wanting to get back to his family and passions

-after marrying you he becomes quite content with his life, and he doesnt majorly change in any way

[traincat]

It is true that Flash Thompson was not originally a bully and that later writer retconned him to be one to make Peter more relatable?

This is an interesting thing to explore and I don’t think it’s quite as clear cut as that, because it’s not like a retcon where the switch got flipped and suddenly This Is How Canon Is. It’s more of a messy canon landslide, filled with creator infighting. (In a move that I’m sure will surprise no one, just like people in fandom disagree with each other’s headcanons, different writers on longrunning multi-creator series disagree with each other’s headcanons. It’s just that they get to then make those headcanons canon.) But to take it back to the very beginning with Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s run – no, I don’t believe Flash Thompson was originally intended to be a bully in high school, at least not in the same way he later became characterized during that time and not in the way that the word “bully” brings to mind in modern context. I think it’s more accurate to say that the original depiction of Flash in the Lee/Ditko run is as the popular student to Peter’s wallflower. Compared to Peter, Flash cares less about intellectual pursuits and schoolwork and comes across more as the Typical American Teenager of the time, complete with curly flaxen hair and sweaters with his initial on the front. Peter and Flash are certainly not friends in high school and Flash is verbally rude to Peter, but he’s certainly not the only one, and, especially after the spider-bite, Peter gives as good as he takes in that department and more. I’d describe the relationship in the Lee/Ditko run as “mutually antagonistic”, and that the nature of that antagonism is largely verbal. Out of the couple of times they have come to blows in the Lee/Ditko run, there’s one boxing match in Amazing Spider-Man #8 to “settle their feud”:

I don’t think this was approved conflict resolution between students even in the 60s, but whatever – anyway, long story short, after an attempt to figure out how to pull his punches enough so he doesn’t seriously injure Flash, Peter… still wipes the floor with him. 

Okay.

Then there’s a fight in Amazing Spider-Man #26, which only gets broke up because Liz Allan physically gets between them:

So in both of these original cases, it’s hard not label Peter as, if not the aggressor, then at the least complicit in these physical fights solely within the confines of the original Lee/Ditko run. I also think it’s notable in the latter scene that, though the principal blames Peter – and look at that flying tackle leap – Flash takes the rap for this fight so Peter won’t get in trouble.

Here’s the thing about Spider-Man as a series: there’s a big joke at the forefront of the series at its beginning, and the joke is that Peter’s dear old aunt might think he’s such a fragile boy, and his classmates might think he’s just another scrawny nerd, but he knows – and you and I, the readers, know – that that’s not true at all and that physically Peter’s much stronger than all of them and he knows – and again, we the readers know – that he could flatten anyone at school who looks at him wrong, and that it’s his own sense of responsibility and morals that keeps him from doing just that. It’s a very specific kind of joke, it’s an in-joke. We know it, Peter knows, nobody else knows it, and that’s why it’s funny. And that joke deepens when they introduce the element of Flash Thompson being Spider-Man’s biggest fan. 

(Amazing Spider-Man #17) So now the joke’s not only that Flash, as Peter’s classmate, might think he’s kind of a wimp, it’s that while he thinks Peter’s a wimp he simultaneously worships the ground Spider-Man walks on. I’ve mentioned before that in my opinion it’s a shallow take to boil Spider-Man’s humor as a series down to Peter’s quipping in fights; the narrative itself is clever, and Flash squabbling with Peter while simultaneously thinking Spider-Man’s just the greatest ever is part of that. To complicate things further, part of the reason Flash dislikes Peter at this point in canon is because he feels his girlfriend Liz Allan is gunning to get with Peter (and she is). Flash and Liz have an odd relationship; they’re ostensibly together through high school, but essentially they’re both obsessed with the same guy in different outfits. (This isn’t actually canon, or at least, it isn’t yet, but for the sake of the conversation: I do strongly believe that Flash, as he’s been written in 616 over the years, is gay. @bipeteparker has an excellent breakdown of the subtext here. And so while I do think it’s very easy to paint Flash’s feelings for Spider-Man as more than platonic, I also think his feelings for Peter eventually get, yeah, pretty romantic. Identity porn in practice!)

Peter and Flash continue this kind of mutual antagonism into the early days of college, where they both end up in Gwen Stacy’s social circle:

(Amazing Spider-Man #37) I do think the Ditko/Lee run is very important, but there’s a reason I don’t usually recommend people start with it, and it’s because if you’re used to Peter Parker being a certain way, Peter in the original run is uhhh. Let’s call him prickly, to say the least. For all of Flash’s posturing here in this scene, if you look at what’s actually on the page, he does sort of come off a little better than Peter – from his perspective, he’s trying to defend Gwen, his friend, from a guy he knows has a history of some pretty weird behavior. I don’t doubt that the original point of the scene was for the reader to come down more on Peter’s side of things (note Gwen’s internal monologue), but from a modern perspective, well – Peter’s being a pretty big jerk in it. (Peter mellows out a lot in college, and also when John Romita Sr hits the scene and replaces Ditko on art.)

So one of the things that kept Peter and Flash from being friends sooner – and within the confines of the Lee/Ditko run, kept Peter from having friends at all sooner – is that Peter’s responsibilities towards Spider-Man and his aunt did make him initially come off as very standoffish during high school and at the beginning of college, which was the result of him being, well, just superhumanly busy and having a lot on his mind, but which his classmates (who don’t have the reader’s privilege of knowing just what the hell is up with Peter Parker) did read as him thinking he was too good for them:

(Amazing Spider-Man #34)

Flash remarks on this same behavior in the future, after he and Peter have become friends:

“We all had responsibilities, Pete. But we made time for each other. You made it clear that you always had something more important to do than be with us. How do you think we felt?” (Web of Spider-Man #11 – with a classic Flash Thompson fashion look.) This is one of the downsides of Spider-Man; because of his secret identity, even the Peter people loves most in his life (and he grows to love Flash a very great deal) don’t really know every side of him. And it’s very easy for the reader to sympathize with Peter first and foremost because we know he missed that movie/dance/dinner/whatever because there was a supervillain on the loose, or someone was trapped in a burning building, but when he can’t/won’t share that information with the people in his life with whom he keeps breaking plans, I think it’s also reasonable to sympathize with them feeling like they’re just not important to him, so I like Web of Spider-Man #11′s spin on the situation. (Flash also comes down on Peter’s treatment of Liz Allan in high school, given her obvious crush on him, in the issue.)

To go back briefly to the idea of Peter and Flash having a mutual antagonism in high school, rather than a bully-victim dynamic, while Flash looked down on Peter for not being as athletic or popular with girls as him, Peter teased Flash about his intelligence:

(”Back before we became friends, Parker used to tease me for not being as bright as he is. I wonder if he knew how much that hurt?” – Spectacular Spider-Man #148.) So there’s an interesting twist in the dynamic there, because we the readers know that Flash teasing Peter about not being as athletic as him is funny because, after the spider-bite, Peter’s far stronger and faster than Flash is. Peter teasing Flash about not being as smart as him, on the other hand, isn’t funny at all, because Peter really is that much smarter than Flash. And I’m not trying to make Peter out to be the bully in the situation, but I do think Spider-Man comics and relationship dynamics are at their best when not everything is as simple as it seems and when there are different sides to the story, and that I do really like this dynamic of Peter and Flash of two kids who just drastically didn’t understand each other, and who both had pretty valid reasons not to like each other in high school, but who ended up clicking really well in later life as they both matured. It’s also notable that Peter, while orphaned as a young child, had Ben and May who were very loving parents, whereas Flash’s father was violently abusive. In the issue that reveals Flash’s home life situation, a much younger Flash stares down in envy at Peter and Uncle Ben:

(Spectacular Spider-Man #-1)

(Venom (2011) #5)

Having established all of that, it is pretty much hard canon now that Flash was more of a garden variety bully in high school, with the idea popularized in Spider-Man fandom by like, every Peter Parker movie, and as comics moved forward with new writers who saw different parts of their own experiences in Peter’s high school isolation, or who wanted to move things into a more modern perspective. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing for Flash as a character, necessarily – I don’t think it’s in the original Lee/Ditko run’s text, but neither is Flash having a father who beats him, and while “bully is actually a victim of abuse himself” is maybe an overused trope, it comes up a lot for a reason, and so much of Spider-Man does boil down to what abuse does to people, and how they then abuse other people – or how they choose not to do that. (A huge part of Flash’s Venom run is on breaking the cycle of abuse.) I know I’ve talked a couple times about Flash being put down to make Peter look better by comparison, I don’t really mean the slide of Flash from popular boy who just, well, didn’t really like Peter into Peter’s bully so much as some later canon (particularly around the late ‘90s and into the ‘00s) that, well, didn’t seem to really know what to do with Flash.

For example, for a while in canon, Flash had a job as an athletics coach teaching kids, and he seemed to really like it and he was really good with kids! Then we hit a point in canon and it’s like, oh never mind, he considers this a dead-end job for a loser. In the mid-250s of Spectacular Spider-Man, Flash tries to get back together with Betty Brant, with the caveat that something unnamed and jerkish happened to end their relationship and that it was his fault -- but that doesn’t make sense, in part because after Ned’s death and Betty’s breakdown it’s never clear whether Flash and Betty’s relatoinship ever even regained a romantic footing, and besides we see Flash and Betty hanging out in the same company after that when Flash was seeing Felicia with no apparent hard feelings between them. And some of it’s just your regular comic book style character regression -- at one point, Flash gets kidnapped by Norman Osborn, waterboarded with whisky, framed for a car accident that leaves him in a coma and with brain damage, and then when he comes out of it he’s regressed back to his high school-ish personality and can’t remember being friends with Peter (this didn’t last but it was sure a thing). So there’s some stuff like that. And I do think a lot of it comes out of comic book writers who maybe identify with Peter a little too closely as a former high school nerd and it offers them a chance to put the jock down which -- I don’t know, I think it’s just a shallower take on a relationship that developed very naturally. 

So long story short, I don’t think the bully angle is something that was really in the Lee/Ditko run, and that Flash and Peter have more of a mutual antagonism that initially stems from Flash being the popular kid and Peter being a loner who feels isolated, yes, but who also had a tendency at that age to isolate himself, and that the bully aspect later emerged as a way to make Peter more of a relatable figure initially -- less prickly, more picked on, and Flash got pushed into that role because of it. It’s canon now, and I don’t really have a problem with it -- Flash and Peter managed to work it out amongst themselves, after all -- but I do think it’s interesting how it’s changed over the years, and I do personally think the initial dynamic from the Lee/Ditko run is more interesting. Ultimately I think the evolution of Flash in high school from a popular and a bit airheaded jock who loves Spider-Man to being characterized as a bully first and foremost is a shame because Flash and Peter have a really great friendship in later canon, and that’s something I’d like to see more of in Spider-Man adaptations. Instead the bully role just gets trot out over and over again.

[enz-fan]

Article by Margo Huxley - early days in Australia, 1975. 

“On stage are what appear to be seven refugees from an op shop run by a lunatic asylum. They wear suits that are too big, too small or both at once. The singer’s hair is a frizz of tangles that falls over his heavily be-rouged face. He moves like a sped up movie of Charlie Chaplin doing an imitation of Harpo Marx - or is it vice versa? He comes on with a patter that sounds like ‘Waiting for Godot’ done by a music hall M.C.

Somewhere in the shadows lurks Groucho, complete with eyebrows and moustache, playing a Gibson electric guitar. Next to him, but only briefly, stands a fellow in a baggy brown suit from the set of the Godfather - he plays bass.

Round-faced and cherubic sits the drummer, almost hidden behind his kit, but visible enough to show that his suit too is certainly somebody’s cast-off.

A resurrected James Dean, white faced and hollow-eyed in a teddy boy suit of brilliant red, the pants of which are far too long and bag around the lower part of his legs, plays acoustic, electric suitar and mandolin.

The maestro of the keyboards - synthesizer, mellotron, string synthesizer and a piano that looks like someone has taken an axe to it, (and though electric, it sounds just like the real thing) - he is resplendent in tails, almost normal except that one sleeve ends at the left elbow and the other is about a foot beyond his right hand.

Then there’s this fellow just standing there, seemingly redundant in an ill-fitting pale blue suit, his head hanging like a broken marionette. Redundant that is, until he breaks forth with a pair of spoons in his hand, playing them against his head, his feet, his knees, anywhere. The rest of the time he plays slightly pixillated triangle, xylophone, bell-tree and tambourine to mention a few. Occasionally he strides up to a microphone, any microphone, to throw in a world or two of vocals.

Suddenly the demented action stops and the whole band stands in cameo stillness for a burst of electronic sound that fills the hall.

“Who are they?” a bloke in the audience asks his mate. “Dunno” the mate replies. “I think they’re Captain Matchbox.”

WRONG! This is Split Enz and as their name implies, they hail from New Zealand. Don’t be fooled. Just because they “dress funny” doesn’t mean they are like Captain Matchbox, skyhooks or - “Anyone who compares us with Roxy Music hasn’t heard Roxy Music” says Timothy Finn, lead singer.

Neither are they like Yes, King Crimson, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Beefheart, Zappa, Schonbert, Cage, Al Jolson, Scott Joplin, The Goons, Marcel Marceau, Monty Python or anyone else you like to mention. But comparisons are inevitable.

Comparisons are the direction with which we chart the waters of a new experience. In Split Enz music you fill find everything: classical and neo-classical; music hall honkeytonk and sleazy vaudeville; acoustic and electronic, with a blues and a boogie thrown in here and there; good ol’ rock’n’ roll; and just when you think they’ve done it all they hit you with a piano full of cool jazz, some Gregorian chants or calypso shouts for good measure.

These analogies are only signposts; the more you hear their music, the less you need them, and the more you come to realise that Split Enz create music that is individually theirs. Their lyrics conjure up nightmare visions, obsessions with madness and the macabre, woven out of cliches that spring at you with renewed vigour; phrases such as “time to kill”, “dead to the world” suggest sinister overtomes. Lines like “just hold me down if I have a fit... I think I’ll be all right... I’ll be normal someday”, “the rats are crawling up my back, it can only mean you’re coming back” are delivered with frenetic, demented mime that is more demonic than lunatic.

Some songs perhaps threaten to fall apart at the seams as style, rhythm and reference change and pile upon one another, but for the most part each song, as each performance, is carefully arranged.

“It’s a bloody orchestra.” one innocent bystander is heard to remark. And indeed ‘orchestrated’ is a better word for the music, and ‘choreographed’ a better word for the performance.

The taped Andrews Sisters-type music at the beginning with canned applause and the announcement “... SPLIT ENZ!”, the discourse on “how to get from A to B”, walking on an invisible conveyer belt going nowhere - the whole performance is a carefully planned sequence.

But not stilted, not unspontaneous. There are always new surprises even when, at daytime gigs they dispense with make up and stage clothes and appear as their normal selves. Despite the parodies and satires implied in their music - “Spoofs” is the word Timothy Finn uses - there clings to them an aura of innocence and naivety, like a Henri Rousseau painting.

This impression persists with them off stage. They are quietly spoken and polite. although their normal dress is somewhat - uh - eccentric in these days blue jeans and T-shirts, they are not the formidably intimidating maniacs they become on stage.

Timothy Finn, whose hair is no more manageable off stage than on, does most of the talking. Eddie Rayner of the keyboards is more relaxed, with a fresh-faced charm like the captain of the school cricket.

He joined Split Enz from Space Waltz, a group in which he earned much deserved renown for his wizardry on the ivories and electronic switches.

Jonathon Michael Chunn of the bass guitar has Byronic good looks that even his stage make up cannot hide, and Wally Wilkinson, moustache free from blackening and eyebrows normal is full of witty irrelevancies.

Emlyn Crowther, the man behind the drums, looks as Welsh as his name and smiles a lot. Noel Crombie is the owner of the chattering spoons. He is also the designer and maker of costumes, silent and forlorn looking, like a lost pup. And Philip Judd is reserved, almost disdainful, and stripped of grease paint, looks more like Rudolf Valentino than James Dean – that might be something to do with the scarf knotted at his throat.

Split Enz was formed about 3 years ago, but the present line up has only been together for about 10 months and work remarkably well. Timothy Finn and Philip Judd are responsible for the genesis of the words and music which the whole group then fashion into a final stage presentation.

They don’t like to talk about ‘influences’ – “The Beatles” says Timothy Finn without so much as a bat of an eyelid. And when you think about it anyone who plays music today can’t have escaped the ubiquitous presence of the Beatles. Anyway, Split Enz have admitted to liking the Kinds and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. You can make what you like of that. It’s not a definitive list.

Their conversation is free of swearing and they don’t smoke, but have been seen to drink a beer or two on the odd occasion. They are naturally “un-hip”. They avoid words like ‘hassle’, ‘dig’, ‘gig’ and anyone in the group who makes such a blunder is gently offered alternatives like ‘bother’, ‘appreciate’, ‘job’.

Confusion occurs about their names – again because of their desire to reject the clichés of the pop world. They decided to take their second Christian names as first names which is why if you ever come across anything written about them in New Zealand, the names won’t tally. Sometimes they themselves forget and call each other by their old names, but the error is always quickly corrected.

However, some of them nationalistically flaunt the great New Zealand ‘eh’ on the end of their sentences. “That’s a great new piano we’ve just bought, eh” – not a question, a statement. But they are dropping the tag “New Zealand’s Top Band” and such like, which, while it is undoubtedly true, is just another cliché to be avoided like the plague (whoops, sorry).

Already their stay of three weeks in Australia has been extended to six in order to record with Festival in Sydney. The album will be produced by their manager Dave Russell and the cover design by ex art student Philip Judd. Out on Mushroom, the album will be a token of Michael Gudinski’s enthusiasm for this band.

They have been deluged with work, after an initially slow start in Sydney. They are the support act for the Leo Sayer Melbourne concert and have done an ABC GTK which was an immediate success. More than 60 phone calls came in after it was shown to ask who the band were – that’s some sort of record.

Up until this Australian tour, the group has always had plenty of time to recuperate from the last job and plan and prepare the next. But they are finding the rigours of touring with jobs every day or so, and sometimes more than one a day, very wearing. Any spare energy left over from the last performance must be channelled into preparing for the one following close on its heels.

Another result of the GTK spot was an approach from an ABC producer to do the sound track for a documentary called “Ten Australians”. In particular they are to back a sequence featuring the artist Sydney Ball at work.

Their plans for the future include a return to New Zealand for a couple of months, followed by a longer sojourn in Australia (amen to that), and depending on reactions to their album they hope to go to England…

Of course such an esoteric band does not have universal appeal, and being unknown in Australia, sight unseen, it’s even harder to win hearts and minds. They have great hopes that the album, plus their shows here and a bit of media exposure will make their return to Australia somewhat easier.

They do not appeal to the younger age groups – “they are no the audience we are really aiming at”. They got a poor reception at the Melbourne Festival Hall Skyhooks concert, where they were first on. The audience didn’t know and didn’t want to. (But I seem to remember once a long time ago, Skyhooks was an “underground” band). But at the Reefer Cabaret, at Unis and the Station Hotel standing ovations are the order of the day.

“There are many ways of saying goodbye:” Timothy Finn lurches into his pitch for the final number – limbs jerking, face twitching at the mercy of some drunken puppeteer; “Goodbye, Byebye, Adieu, See you later, Au revoir…” etc. “…SO LONG FOR NOW”.

Never fear, we have not seen the last of Split Enz. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is A Good Thing.”

[tygerbug]

Who Reviews

Doctor Who: The Witchfinders, written by Joy Wilkinson. In the history of Doctor Who we've had three stories both written and directed by women. The last was Barbara Clegg's Enlightenment in 1983, an unusual story which stands out from its era and is easily one of the best of the 80s. The Witchfinders is a very solid tale, and you might say it succeeds as a traditional Doctor Who story more than any other this year. I've seen someone on Twitter call it the best so far and I can't concur with that, but this is a good opportunity to look at what's really been happening with Doctor Who this year overall.

Chris Chibnall as showrunner has brought us a Doctor Who which functions better as Genuine Adult Drama (GAD) than the Davies and Moffat eras did. You can feel the influence of Davies, but they've shaved his trademark silliness off the whole thing for a more muted feel to the proceedings. This is paired with an anamorphic desaturated feature-film look to the visuals. At times the series even feels bland and flavorless, but at its best we feel the weight of the adult concepts the TARDIS team are faced with - American racism in "Rosa" and the British-sparked conflict between Muslims and Hindus in "Demons of the Punjab." The Witch trials of the King James era are a weighty, depressing subject, and it seems a little bit of a shame to bring traditional Doctor Who alien monsters into it. To the episode's credit, it goes full horror movie with this. There's some CGI but it's mostly makeup straight out of a zombie film - specifically the Evil Dead series. It feels too scary for kids, and Doctor Who should occasionally feel like that. And oh, let's talk about King James. Russell T. Davies established the traditional of the "celebrity historical" where The Doctor meets a well known historical (or sometimes fictional) personage, often played by a recognizable guest-star actor. So here's Alan Cumming, a big-name actor coming in to play his part as an absolute lark. Openly gay and affecting a comical upper-class Scottish accent of some kind, he's a delight throughout, whether flirting with Ryan or trying to learn The Doctor's secrets. The half-comedic performance does undermine him a bit as a threat, but it's nice to see a guest actor having fun with a part. Cumming is a smart enough actor to never go fully over the top with it, pitching his performance at the right level so that it doesn't break the scene. The three companions have been reliably good, but not in a showy or cartoonish way. They only occasionally get standout moments. There's a lot of humor and energy to Jodie Whittaker's performance as The Doctor, which is not unlike David Tennant's popular Doctor, but it often feels like that energy is muted by everything else around her, as if she's acting in a tank of water. The Witchfinders is the first episode to show The Doctor struggling to get anyone to take her seriously, due to her gender. King James doesn't recognize her as being in charge, and she's sentenced as a witch and drowned. I'm glad an episode dealt with this, but it also speaks to a fundamental, and peculiar, powerlessness inherent to Jodie Whittaker's version of The Doctor. In the 60s-80s series, it was common for The Doctor to be mistrusted by everyone at the beginning of a story, and locked up until he could prove his worth. Jon Pertwee's Doctor spends much of Frontier in Space going from one prison cell to another. The faster-paced post-2005 series rightly dispensed with that as padding they didn't have time for. Psychic Paper was introduced to give The Doctor credentials and credibility at the beginning of a story, along with other tricks often involving the Sonic Screwdriver - which by this point is an all-purpose tool but can also be used for its traditional purpose of opening locks to get The Doctor - and the writer - out of a dead end. The Psychic Paper fails The Doctor in this one, as King James doesn't respect a woman's authority. It was usually easy for The Doctor, as played by Eccleston, Tennant, Smith or Capaldi, to talk his way into a position of authority, and Whittaker's Doctor managed that in her first scene. But increasingly it's become apparent that The Doctor is not doing an amazing job of solving every problem in an episode like an all-powerful God, or kid's TV hero. The Davies and Moffat eras often wanted to show you how amazing and powerful The Doctor is. This Doctor keeps ending up with endings in which some immediate threat has been vanquished, but larger societal problems linger, and people we care about are dead. Last week's episode, Kerblam!, set up an apparently dystopic capitalist future, where an Amazon-like retailer had replaced 90% of employees with automation, and was required by law to keep a 10% human workforce. The employed workers were treated like machines, and were miserable, and the unemployed were apparently living in even greater misery and poverty. The episode couldn't, or wouldn't, imagine an automated future where the unemployed are cared for. Capitalism can't imagine that either. The Doctor sees that misery and doesn't do much to help. She solves the immediate problem that is killing workers, so that the company can keep on running, more or less as it did before. This has been something of a running theme. The Doctor doesn't fix anything for citizens of this galaxy at large. The Doctor can't improve the racism of 20th Century America, only observe it and make sure that Rosa Parks' protest happens as scheduled. You could say the same about the border dispute tearing India apart in 1947. History isn't changed, only observed and mourned, and the role of the colonizing British in creating his situation is not dealt with in any overt way. Grace dies in the course of The Doctor's first adventure. The Doctor feeds the dangerous Pting, calming it for awhile, but sets it loose afterward. We never see The Doctor deal with the giant spiders or, more importantly, the toxic waste that created them. That waste was itself the product of deregulation under the laissez-faire rule of Chris Noth's Robertson, an uber-capitalist narcissist psychopath who is compared to Trump (though not as vile). The Doctor and Ryan are seen to trap the large spiders for a natural death, but what happens after that is not dealt with onscreen. Instead we get this companion team officially joining The Doctor in the TARDIS. In every episode this year, we witness a very messed-up situation, often caused by some intersection of capitalism and racism. But it's not a situation The Doctor can fix by the end of the episode. She can only mitigate the stranger, monster-based elements, the threat that they're facing immediately in the moment. She removes whatever is gumming up the gears of progress so that the actual horrors of the society in question can continue unchallenged. Of course in the more historically-based episodes it's too much to ask that The Doctor Solve Everything, in capital letters. Is she supposed to solve racism? But the more fantasy-based episodes like Kerblam! have much less excuse. It's telling, I think, that these episodes overall are better at dealing with America's failures than Britain's. The Doctor is powerless to deliver a truly happy ending, or even to show she's trying for one, and I wonder if that's intentional or due to a lack of political consciousness on the part of the writers and showrunner. This year on Halloween, the leftist Youtube channel Philosophy Tube did a piece about the horrors of the witch trials, and how they were used to break the power that women had in a feudal agricultural society, including traditional medicine, and how this led to modern capitalism. He covered the same material on Twitter, and I'll link to that here. https://twitter.com/PhilosophyTube/status/953277894813536256 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmk47kh7fiE "The Witch-Hunt is classic Divide and Rule: paint women as dangerous so the new proletariat are busy fighting 'witches' instead of joining together and fighting the rich. There are massive rollbacks of women's rights … Records were often kept of how much land or money was seized from them, but not how many were murdered." It's an interesting take on just how bloody the transition to an industrial capitalist society was, and how the people and their "old ways" had to be broken for this to happen. It was a means of controlling women's options, and the options of the average worker, something that's still relevant to today's society. In some ways we still live, today, in the cages that the witch-hunters built. Today's politicians like Mike Pence are just witch-hunters in different clothes. And that's something this Doctor Who story doesn't deal with. I've mentioned this, but when the Rosa Parks story was announced, I saw a lot of people on Twitter, who aren't Doctor Who fans, assuming that a Doctor Who take on Rosa Parks would by nature have to be a disgusting exercise in tastelessness. Maybe they thought The Doctor would be taking on some kind of Racism Monster. Apart from introducing The Doctor and a villain into the proceedings, "Rosa," as an episode, was tastefully done. While it didn't show clearly that Rosa Parks planned her protest beforehand, it did show that Parks was an activist who planned her actions alongside others (including Dr. King), which is more than many history books do. But their fears were not unfounded. It's common for pop culture to create extended and elaborate metaphors about bigotry as if they're making some grand statement, but also reinforce that bigotry as somehow justified along with it. In Disney's Zootopia, there are classes of predator and prey animals, and the predators are discriminated against and find it difficult to get ahead in society. This is a metaphor about racism, but it would be entirely justified for a rabbit to be afraid of a fox. In the wild, a "predator" would eat the "prey" animal. If this is truly taken as a metaphor for white racism against black people in America, it's an offensive one. Race is a social construct, and racism as we know it was created to enforce slavery. It established people with dark skin of African descent as an underclass, to exploit in order to grease the wheels of capitalism in the centuries before the Civil War (and afterward, if we're being quite honest). Black people and white people are genetically identical, and without the shadow of slavery (created by the rich to enrich themselves) would have identical rights. Foxes and rabbits are not genetically identical. One is likely to eat the other. In the X-Men series, mutants are feared and shunned by society. They have superpowers from birth, and are genuinely extremely powerful and potentially dangerous. So if the public fears them, that's actually entirely justified. The mutants are different from "normal" humans and could assert their power in very dangerous ways if they wanted. Wolverine is virtually an immortal with knives for hands. Phoenix could easily destroy the earth. The endless comics, TV series and films featuring the X-Men have positioned Xavier and Magneto as the "Dr. King" and "Malcolm X" of their story, in that Xavier wants mutants to have equal rights and is more palatable to the mainstream, while Magneto is "too radical." But this is an offensive metaphor when you break it down. Of course neither Xavier nor Magneto are black Americans. Both Dr. King and Malcolm X were considered extreme radicals in their time, and they agreed on many concepts. Dr. King spoke out for worker's rights generally, and for class consciousness. He was murdered for his beliefs. Magneto has magnet powers and runs a club called "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" which seeks to dominate over humanity. He's a bad guy who does bad things and constantly emperils the world in general. Comparing him to a 60s civil rights leader is an offensive metaphor, unless you accept that the X-Men series just wants to touch on the history of bigotry in America as subtext without accepting everything that comes with it, which is fair enough. It's not a history lesson. But like almost all sci-fi stories, it makes no sense without our understanding of how black people and other groups have been marginalized in America, but makes the story about white people instead, like a cartoon fox played by Jason Bateman. The history of slavery, oppression, bigotry, Nazism, fascism, and so on is the subtextual backstory for pretty much all sci-fi media. So many villains are based on the Nazis, but this rarely takes into account the racist ideology behind fascism. Hitler came to power after Germany's economy had collapsed, partly due to the Great War. The average worker was living in hopeless poverty, and either they were going to develop class consciousness and tear down capitalism, asserting their rights as a worker, or they were going to need someone to blame. Hitler gave them someone to blame. He rounded up the socialists, communists and Marxists who were preaching against capitalism. He blamed it all on the Jewish people, who traditionally had been excluded from many professions and were often involved in banking. It was apparently easy to make up conspiracy theories about them Actually Being in Charge of Everything. He rounded up the LGBT people, burned gay and trans literature. He targeted the Romani "gypsies" who had been marginalized for centuries. There was no logical underpinning behind this. There never really is, with racism. Hitler only wanted power, and he saw that the people had lost faith in the world, with capitalism and their government. They were being oppressed by economic depression, and had a general unfocused rage. He used that anger and directed it toward groups that were already marginalized in some way. He distracted the people and consolidated his power by giving them something to hate. He slaughtered six million Jewish people in an apparent bid to wipe an entire religion off the face of the Earth - the religion which gave us Christianity, for that matter. Since the 80s, Capitalism and greed has gone unchecked by any desire to actually help people and have a functioning society. After George W. Bush's trillion-dollar wars for oil, the economy has crashed and not really gotten better. People are noticing. The rich are getting obscenely so, as if they're being gifted the equivalent of a brand new car every few seconds. The poor are begging for scraps. There is a general unfocused rage. Donald Trump, a fake billionaire, has gotten a large chunk of America to blame it on non-white minorities, such as people from Mexico. This is what Hitler did. I've gotten way off topic, but for a reason. The people who burned witches in the 17th century and thereabouts were not actually killing people who had any magical powers. They were murdering their neighbors, and consciously or not it helped the world change. The world's economy was changing. Land was being seized. Power was shifting. People were losing rights and property they had previously been entitled to, as part of a series of steps which led to factory work in the 19th century. They killed women to kill off the old ways. And I'm watching a rather good Doctor Who episode about that, about killing witches to "fight the powers of Satan," and it turns out that in this episode they actually have good reason to be killing off their neighbors, or to fear the powers of Satan, because there's actually some evil alien stuff going on, and it's infecting people and raising people from the dead and it all looks very scary and supernatural. If you're in the mood to be offended it does feel a little like a Witch Trial but with Actual Witchcraft, portraying the witch-hunters as absurd and awful but also somewhat vindicated by the events of the story, not unlike our X-Men and Zootopia examples. So it's a good Doctor Who yarn, but as a metaphor it doesn't even get started. The episode isn't that interested in the larger societal issues at play here, although it does deal with sexism, which covers a lot of that territory in a general sense. It largely focuses on female characters (except for King James), and both the writer and director are women, for the third time in Doctor Who history. And that's been due to sexism. There haven't been a ton of women writing Doctor Who, or directing it (despite the big-name appeal of Tank Girl director Rachel Talalay). And that's a problem. And it's a problem the show has temporarily solved, by hiring women for this week only. The larger cultural problem remains. And the show keeps fighting for diversity, this year. British writer Malorie Blackman OBE handled "Rosa" with real sensitivity. And Vinay Patel handled "Demons of the Punjab" with full awareness of its historical background. Between them they've probably delivered the two best episodes this year. Indeed these have all stood above the episodes credited to Chris Chibnall. The diversity this year has been welcome, as it's resulted in some good television. But like The Doctor's actions in these episodes it's just a band-aid placed over any larger cultural issues. She can stop the problem of the week, but she really can't fix everything. Which is fine. Realistic, even, which fits the tone of this year in general. My question is, does she want to fix everything? Are The Doctor and her writers socially aware enough to use these larger issues responsibly? So far, in terms of social consciousness, this year's Doctor Who raises a lot of questions it can't actually answer. Not in a way which satisfies the kids, or the adults - for different reasons. It's still very good television, and I'll give it points for asking some of these questions in the first place.

[language-rxgers]

Grease Lightning (Bucky Barnes x Reader High School!AU)

Summary: You’re on the hair & makeup team for your school’s production of Grease, and Nat has signed you up to do the makeup for the lead role of Danny Zuko- played by none other than Bucky Barnes. 

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Reader, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, Maria Hill, Jarvis

Word Count: 1185

Warnings: swearing, awkwardness 

A/N: K, so I really love high school AU’s and Grease, so I thought this would be kinda fun to write. This is just an intro of what it would be like, but it would be a multi-part shot series because my dumb ass doesn’t know how to write less than 1000 words in a fic. Anyhoozle, please let me know if you would like for me to continue this, it would just be a cute short series for fun!

masterlist

part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5

“Morning,” Nat greeted you as you set your binder on one of the round tables crowding the cafeteria.

“Hey,” you greet, slinging off your backpack and pulling up a chair, dropping the pack by your feet. The cafeteria was moderately tame, as it usually was at 8:00 in the morning; you liked to call it the calm before the storm- the brief window of time when all was quiet and still sleepy before the school became flooded with students. You laid your head on your binder, letting out a long wistful sigh.

Nat patted your shoulder before taking a sip from her tea. “Problem?” She asked. You shook your head.

“No, just tired and dramatic.” She pursed her lips in amusement.

“Clinic’s after school today.” She noted.

You perked up. “Right! We’re choosing our characters tonight too, right?” It was that time of the year again when the school play got into swing. This year you were doing a production of Grease, and as per usual, you and Nat were on the hair and makeup team. You were especially excited for this year, as you’d practically grown up watching Grease, it being your mother’s favorite movie. You loved the classic era of the 50’s and 60’s, and couldn’t wait to see whose makeup you’d be doing for the musical.

You lifted your head to look at Nat again, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw a familiar head of dark hair round the corner into the cafeteria, giving your heart a jolt. You quickly averted your gaze and looked back to Natasha, who was busy working on some homework. ‘Thank God,’ you sighed in relief. If she’d seen him, you’d never hear the end of it. Again. You jumped when you felt a hand clap on your shoulder, turning around to see Steve smiling at you in amusement.

“Morning,” you greeted.

“Morning. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you” He pulled out a chair beside you. You laughed, shaking your head.

“No, just startled. We were talking about the musical. Are you doing anything for it?” You inquired.

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I’m doing set painting,” he answered, to your lack of surprise. Steve was a born artist, and you were sure that you’d be able to tell what of the set he’d done compared to the others in a heartbeat. You also felt a sly grin begin to tug at your lips when you remembered that Peggy Carter was head of set and props design. You knew Steve was sweet on Peggy, had been since the young girl had walked into his History class after moving from England. You also knew that Peggy had taken a fancy to Steve ever since they’d been partners in a science lab and he’d pushed her behind him when one of the student’s experiments had spontaneously combusted. What a punk, he was always looking to get himself killed, it seemed. Steve cleared his throat briefly. “And you? What about you guys?”

“Nat and I are in hair & makeup again, surprise, surprise,” you and Nat glanced at each other, letting out a small chuckle. Steve’s eyebrows raised and his mouth opened slightly, like he’d remembered something and was about to share.

“Oh, maybe one of you will do makeup for Bucky, he’s in the musical this year.” You tried to keep your expression casual, but you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks and your heart rate give a start at Bucky’s name. You forgot he and Steve were close friends. You thanked your lucky stars every day that they were friends from childhood, and their school friend groups didn’t overlap, so Bucky didn’t hang around you guys very often. You gave a- or at least what you hoped was- indifferent shrug.

“Maybe, he might get chosen by someone else first depending on who he’s playing.”

“I think he’s Danny Zuko,” Steve offered. You swallowed. Awesome. Of course he was the lead. Well, at least you probably wouldn’t have him- someone else was sure to choose him first.

“Oh, I’m sure (Y/N) would love to do his makeup,” Nat smirked arching a perfect eyebrow. You widened your eyes in warning.

“Oh yeah? I heard Bruce is in the play too. I’m sure you’d get along just fine.” Nat glared at you, a scarlet flush climbing her neck, while Steve peered up through his eyelashes from where his hands rested in his lap, an entertained smile shining in his clear eyes.

By the time the school bell rang for the end of the day, you were practically buzzing. You went to your locker, and you put away your bags before heading to the home ec room, where the hair and makeup meeting was being held. However, as you turned the corner, you heard your name being called. You turned to see Mr. Jarvis standing outside his door struggling with a few stacked boxes in his arms.

“Ms. (L/N), could I ask you to just open my door for me and help me put these boxes on my shelves? Just for a moment, if you please.” You nodded, heading over to him. You took the keys from his strained hands and unlocked the door, before heading in and helping him stack the boxes. Mr. Jarvis climbed down from his step ladder after all the boxes were put away, dusting off his sweater vest and pleated pants.

“Thank you very much, Ms. (L/N). Have a lovely day, I’ll see you in English tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Mr. J.” You nodded before quickly slipping out of the room and jogging down the halls to the home ec room. You were only five minutes late, so there should still be a good selection of characters left to choose.

When you arrived in the room, you gave an apologetic smile to Ms. Hill, who waved it off and gestured to the character list on the table by the door before turning back to her laptop, scrolling for 50’s makeup tutorial videos. Grabbing a pen, you scanned for characters until your eyes met your own name staring back up at you in Nat’s neat writing. Your stomach dropped like it was made of lead when you looked beside it to see whose character you had: Bucky Barnes- Danny Zuko. On top of that, your name was written in pen, sealing your fate. Your head snapped up at Nat, who was smirking from the table at which she was seated. You narrowed your eyes before looking for her own name. She was signed up- in pencil, the fool- to do makeup for Kenicke, who was being played by Clint Barton, but if she was going to pull this on you, you’d put her through the same thing. You erased her name and scribbled it in beside Bruce’s character- quiet jock and Sandy’s first romantic interest, Tom Chisum- in pen as well.

When you joined her at her table, you gave her a pleasant smile and turned to watch the video that Hill had just started, mentally preparing yourself for the next few weeks.

part 2 / part 3 / part 4 /  part 5

Tags- please let me know if you’d like to be added! Strikethrough meant you couldn’t be tagged, sorry!

Bucky:

@sawdustandsugar

All Works:

@the-instrumental-mortal @crazy4thewinbros @palaiasaurus64 @winterboobaer @thefridgeismybestie @becauseifuckingcan @libbyjune24 @erisan @pitubea1910 @lilmissperfectlyimperfect @friendlyneighborhoodnazgul @sixweekcure4dreams @alemer88 @im-an-angel-of-the-lord-you-ass 

[ssfoc]

Do you prefer Louis music or Harry music? And what is your favourite song from Harry album?

Well, comparing their music is like comparing apples and oranges. They’re very different songwriters and singers. They do write to their own strengths.

I think of Harry as someone who thinks in chord progressions and harmonies. His melodies are amazingly beautiful, and he can really write a complete song— I mean the verse, chorus, bridge all work very well together, with one easing into the other without feeling like they were cut and pasted together. His harmonies are complex like some of the blues rock bands in the 60’s, a lot of chromatics and 7th chords. I really love the way he thinks like a classical composer, in motifs and chords.

I used to like ESNY the most on HS1. I think overall, for me right now, there is no better song than SOTT on the album. It wins by a mile. It’s a technically difficult song to sing (for him), a harmonically simple song, but with so much interesting stuff to hear, such masterful pacing, so much buildup and pay off. It’s a great song. In ten years, it’ll still be a great song.

Louis, on the other hand, has an ability to be so relatable yet so sophisticated. His understanding of rhythm, pacing, language is intuitive. It all sounds colloquial and easy, but when I listen to other pop songs, I realize that it’s not easy, it’s anything but easy to sound this effortless. He can paint a familiar feeling in two or three colloquial phrases, like having tea with a friend. It’s the feeling of being with someone smart and caring, who can be sparing with words.

My favorite song of Louis hasn’t been released yet. I’m thinking something in the vein of Strong or Home, or No Control or What a Feeling. No Control, Home— they’re structured like conversations, but at the same time there’s so much interesting stuff to listen to in the delivery, the staggered speech rhythms, the percussion that fills in the empty spaces. I think of the solo songs, I like Miss You the most. It’s a gem of a song, but also a sad song.

[elizadoolittlethings]

https://www.room207press.com/2018/01/we-dont-go-back-76-league-of-gentlemen.html

Friday, 19 January 2018

We Don't Go Back #76: The League of Gentlemen (1999-2017)

When

The League of Gentlemen

was first broadcast, I didn't own a TV, and by the time I owned one, I was living with my Beloved, who didn't have any interest in seeing it. Nonetheless, I could tell you a not insignificant amount about the major characters, and reel off catchphrases. I could tell you what it was like. People cared about it. Partly this was because several of my friends adored it, and it entered the referential lexicon of our conversation. But partly it seemed to be present, part of the furniture of our pop culture.

For example, I remember that at the time the university LGB society (the T or the Q were not yet added, which is related to a point I'll pick up later) used pictures of prominent gay and lesbian people on posters for an anti-homophobia campaign and one of them was Mark Gatiss, and I recognised him as the chap from

The League of Gentlemen

. It's fair to say that

The League of Gentlemen

fell firmly into the category of things I'd never seen but which I could take part in a conversation about without getting completely lost.

I never got round to watching

The League of Gentlemen

.

But now this project is Serious Business, there are some things I can't really get away with leaving out. So I committed myself to watching it. A good friend expressed concern that it might be too late for me to do that. I sort of half understood what he was getting at, but only really got what he was about having worked through it.

The usual caveats about how writing about comedy are the antithesis of funny apply here, by the way (I still think my funniest article was the one about

Planet of the Apes

, but I digress).

Honest town signs.

The League of Gentlemen

are Reese Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson. All four of them write; Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith appear in front of the camera and divide the vast majority of characters, men and women, between them.

It's set in and around the fictional village of Royston Vasey ("You'll never leave!"), in the North of England, where everyone is a grotesque. It's sort of but not entirely sketch comedy.

Some characters appear in most of the episodes: Pauline (Pemberton), who runs a job start course, loves pens and despises the unemployed; Mike (Pemberton), Barry (Gatiss) and their spectacularly messed up mate Geoff (Shearsmith); disappointed musician Les McQueen (Gatiss); Mr Chinnery the vet (Gatiss again), who kills every animal he touches; Hilary Briss the butcher (also Gatiss) who puts something terrible and evil in his delicious sausages; and perhaps the most iconic characters in the show, Edward and Tubbs (Shearsmith and Pemberton), a pair of debased, depraved yokels who run a Local Shop for Local People and who visit unspeakable fates on anyone who comes who isn't Local.

What's all this SHOUTING?

But unlike many sketch shows, the recurring characters' stories progress from episode to episode. So for example, the fate of innocent Benjamin (Shearsmith) at the hands of his finicky aunt Val (Gatiss) and monstrous uncle Harvey (Pemberton) develops and escalates as he realises he might never be able to leave, and begins to formulate a plan of escape. Pauline finds her nemesis in one of her course attendees. Mr Briss's Special Stuff creates an epidemic of nosebleeds.

Many characters appear in no more than a handful of episodes at most, and become the focus of the episodes they're in. The Legz Akimbo theatre company (slogan: "put yourself in a child!") come to visit the local school but their internal tensions destroy the group. A guide leads a party of tourists through the Royston Vasey caves, while replaying a terrible tragedy for which he blames himself. A farmer keeps a man who slept with his wife as a scarecrow in his field. Kenny Harris (Gatiss), owner of the Dog Cinema, engages in a cutthroat business struggle with a rival who's more into cat films.

And then there's Papa Lazarou.

HELLO, DAVE!

Papa Lazarou (Shearsmith) is the single most nightmarish creation of the League of Gentlemen, and along with Tubbs and Edward, is most representative of the show's folk horror elements. He's the owner of the Pandemonium Carnival, which comes to town early in series 2. Papa Lazarou is a nightmare in human form, his scabrous face caked in black-and-white minstrel makeup. He forces his way into people's houses, insisting on calling them "Dave", and intimidating them through an almost supernatural power of domination into giving him their wedding ring, wherein he spirits them away as his slaves, with the phrase, "You're my wife now."

He is genuinely terrifying, and I wonder how that first episode he's in would play if it didn't have a laugh track (only the first two seasons have laugh tracks). And of course he's one of the two places where people most take offence at

The League of Gentlemen.

The most usual objection to Papa Lazarou is that he's in minstrel blackface. But while minstrel makeup is a blot on our culture, it is, it's obvious from the way that Papa Lazarou is framed is that he's supposed to be horrific because he's precisely the sort of person who wears blackface and always wears it.

In his second appearance (the final episode of series 3) there's an insane visual gag revolving around him disguising himself as relatively normal by painting a pale skin tone

over

his blackface makeup, which I found hilarious. But it's also a bit of a problem for a lot of viewers, evidently, because I've read at least two pieces online that interpret the scene as meaning that he's naturally minstrel-toned, which is... Well, I don't know. I'm starting to doubt my own reading a bit, but part of Papa Lazarou's grotesquerie is that you can see how the black and white paint is caked on his face in closeup, and I'm sort of inclined to go with my original reading, partly because it's much less hard to swallow, and mostly because it's a lot funnier.

The League of Gentlemen

is part of a tradition of British comedy and horror alike that deals with grotesque figres: in a show with Geoff, Mr Briss, Pauline, Harvey and, oh God, Edward and Tubbs, Papa Lazarou is just one more of a parade of freaks and monsters. And he is scary, really scary. The episode where Papa Lazarou and his Pandemonium Carnival comes to town (season 2, episode 1) is the point where I moved from a state of "that bit was pretty good" ambivalence to understanding why people consider

The League of Gentlemen

to be an undisputed classic of British TV comedy. Whatever the framing of Papa Lazarou and his freakshow (and notwithstanding the arguments about whether anyone should be making gags about blackface at all, the politics of freakshows is a subject I am simply not equipped to get into), that whole episode is a delirious comic horror and I have seen little to match it.

I can't go to Dorothy Perkins.

The other point where

The League of Gentlemen

gets some flak is in the figure of Babs the transgender cabbie. And the joke with Babs is partly that she's butch and hairy, so that she looks like a bloke in drag (specifically that she resembles the other women characters on the show, only more so), and partly that she's excessively forthcoming about the mechanical details of her transition with her clients. It's complicated by the fact that most of the people of Royston Vasey like her and are supportive of her. No one on the show is ever an open bigot about Babs. She's never deadnamed, for instance. And she's essentially one of the most sympathetic characters in the show. But nonetheless she embodies most of the most enduring transphobic stereotypes, simply by being so grotesque (so much so that we never see her face).

And back in 1999, as I mentioned in passing, we still talked about LGB issues and a lot of us hadn't added the T yet. And it's not as if trans people hadn't been there all along, but trans rights are in the general sphere of discourse now in a way that in the UK they weren't in the 90s. And this doesn't mean that a character like Babs isn't a problem, it means that many of the people who might be aware of the problem now weren't then because it hadn't been pointed out to them. And that isn't an excuse either. It's like all the history that comes back, unresolved, to haunt us.

You could tell that it haunted

The League of Gentlemen

: in the special episodes that aired over the 2017 Christmas season, she's back. She has to be, really: in a lot of ways, Babs acts like a Greek chorus for the unfolding story. So here she is, opening proceedings as ever. Barbara has transitioned successfully now, and she even says that trans people should not be "a source of cheap laughs" just for being who they are, and given that Barbara is a character who has always been framed as having her heart in the right place, as someone you're supposed to sympathise with, it's pretty clear that this is what Dyson, Gatiss, Pemberton and Shearsmith actually think.

But for her to even appear, and it's more or less obligatory that she does, she still has to supply a joke. So now, no longer an Ugly Trans Person, Barbara is an Excessively Touchy Trans Person who seizes on innocuous statements and takes offence to comic effect.

I wonder if Papa Lazarou and Barbara are problems like this because of the way

The League of Gentlemen

engages with its inspirations.

The League of Gentlemen

owes a great deal to classic British TV and cinema of the 60s and 70s, but crucially it engages with that source material in a way that enriches the show. It's instructive here to compare it with

Dr Terrible's House of Horrible

, which is roughly contemporary and which, unlike

The League of Gentlemen

, has not entered the annals of classic comedy. They both get their inspiration from similar places, in fact in several cases the same places – I mentioned

The League of Gentlemen

's odd relationship with sketch comedy, and it's sort of fair to say that it's sketch comedy in the way that an Amicus anthology horror is sketch horror. But where

Dr Horrible

depended on your being familiar with the source material, at least to some extent, to get the gag,

The League of Gentlemen

tells a collection of stories that don't depend on any foreknowledge at all. It's not a parody, and it's not entirely an homage either, although it has parodic elements and homage is threaded through the whole thing.

Rather, it's a comedy that focusses on the absurdity of evil and the equal absurdity of despair and that uses the grammar of classic British horror to tell those stories.

A Beast.

For example, a narrative thread in the fourth episode has workers on a proposed road digging up an inexplicable creature. Mr Chinnery comes to examine it, and proves as incompetent as ever. And while the scene carries a bunch of signifiers that come from Nigel Kneale, echoing

Quatermass

and

Beasts

in particular, and multiplied by the simple fact that Mr Chinnery looks and acts like Tristan Farnham (Peter Davison's character in

All Creatures Great and Small

), the joke doesn't depend on that. It depends on a moment of uncanny horror punctured when the vet's incompetence is revealed once more.

For the joke to land, you don't have to have seen

Baby

or

Quatermass and the Pit

, and while the whole scene is richer if you imagine Tristan Farnham in a Nigel Kneale script, that's not the joke. No, for the joke to land, you just need to have seen Mr Chinnery in action enough for you to be waiting for the moment when he fails catastrophically.

And throughout

The League of Gentlemen

, this texture is present. Royston Vasey is a vaguely comical, Northern-sounding name. But it is also the real name of legendarily foul-mouthed comedian Roy "Chubby" Brown, who himself appears later in the series as the town's mayor. And the joke with the mayor is that he's got a swearing problem, and that's a simple enough joke that you don't need to know who Roy "Chubby" Brown is, or that he's guesting as mayor of a town named after him to get it. That other stuff helps, but it isn't essential.

But the problem with the way that

The League of Gentlemen

mines classic horror and comedy is that sometimes it homages the things that perhaps should be left behind, so you get characters like Babs and Papa Lazarou, who are both beautifully played and well-written comic characters, but who reference stuff that is difficult to justify beyond nostalgia.

The League of Gentlemen

is important as the first sign of the folk horror renaissance that we've had in the last few years. Rather than saying "look at all these ropey old films! Aren't they terrible?"

The League of Gentlemen

embraces them, but crucially makes new things. It's a comedy, but it's also a horror: Edward and Tubbs reference any number of pagan village conspiracies. "We didn't burn him!" blurts Tubbs to the Scottish policeman who comes looking for poor missing Martin, but not before Edward tells Tubbs that she "did it beautifully."  You don't have to know that they're quoting

The Wicker Man

to think they're funny and scary.

There's nothing for

you

here.

The members of

The League of Gentlemen

have taken active part in the rise of folk horror as a recognised genre. Jeremy Dyson scripted the recent film

Ghost Stories.

Shearsmith of course starred in

A Field in England

, and with Pemberton continues to make

Inside No. 9

, an anthology show that combines comedy and drama, and which has had at least a couple of folk horror episodes. The most notable of these is

The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge

, where Pemberton and Shearsmith play 17th century witch hunters. Just like

The League of Gentlemen

,

The Trial of Elizabeth Gadge

isn't a spoof or a parody, it's a black comedy that stands on its own merits, even while it draws inspiration from other sources.

And Reese Shearsmith took part in Folk Horror Revival's 2016 event at the British Museum, hearing about which is how I realised that there was a name for the things I liked.

Mark Gatiss is the man who might be credited for extending the name "folk horror" to a genre (Piers Haggard being the first to apply it consciously to his own film). In his 2010 series

History of Horror

, Gatiss popularised the idea of the Unholy Trinity, and talked at length about

Blood on Satan's Claw

, which probably did more to bring about the critical reassessment of that film than anything else. Gatiss also wrote

Crooked House

, which aired on the BBC in 2008, and the 2013 adaptation of

The Tractate Middoth.

Together with Shearsmith, Gatiss has remade

Blood on Satan's Claw

as an audio drama (released January 2018).

You could argue pretty persuasively that without

The League of Gentlemen

, there might not have been a rebirth of interest in folk horror at all. Without them, it would still be an accidental genre. A local genre, for local people.

My

Patreon

supporters got to see this last week! To support my work and read early, please consider donating. No donation too small.

Posted by

Howard Ingham

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1:25 pm

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interesting read

this pic motivated the search

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[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 20/03/2021 (Central Cee, KSI/YUNGBLUD/Polo G)

On the tenth week that a song appears on the UK Singles Chart, it becomes likely that it has a cut to its streaming numbers by the Official Charts Company, particularly if it’s still in the top 10 and especially if it’s #1. So, the streaming and sales do not change, but the Official Charts Company just weighs them differently. This means that it’s often that songs reliant on streaming – read: most of the chart given that the UK doesn’t factor in radio – drop intensely on that particular week. Therefore, we switched out our Pokémon and “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo has been replaced at #1 after nine weeks by “Wellerman”, an 1800s sea shanty from New Zealand covered by Nathan Evans and remixed as a pop-house song by 220 KID and Billen Ted. Of course. I don’t know all of the complexities behind this rule but I do know it shakes up the chart at the cost of it being ridiculously inaccurate – I do think “drivers license” is probably still the biggest song in the country. “drivers license” is at #18 now, by the way. Yikes. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

We have a pretty interesting week, to say the least, but before all that, we can get through this brief rundown as always as we cover the UK Top 75 and all of what’s happening over there, since that’s what I cover. First of all, we do have some big drop-outs, like #1 hits “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek that seemingly had its second wind pummelled this week, and “positions” by Ariana Grande leaving somewhat prematurely. We also have “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers retreating to the other 25 slots I don’t cover because, well, of course, as well as “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus and sadly, “Be the One” by Rudimental featuring MORGAN, TIKE and Digga D, but that’s all for the notable drops out of the chart. Still falling within the chart other than the aforementioned “drivers license” are... basically all of the Drake songs from last week falling behind the top 10 and even the top 20, and two of them being behind “Leave the Door Open” now – thankfully. “What’s Next” is at #20, “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” featuring Rick Ross is at #25 and “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is at #28. We also have a handful of other notable fallers like “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI at #27, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber off of the debut at #31 (could rebound next week when the album makes its impact), “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #35, “Anxious” by AJ Tracey off of the debut to #45, “Anyone” by Justin Bieber at #49, “Medicine” by James Arthur at #54, “Bluuwuu” by Digga D at #57, “34+35” by Ariana Grande at #58, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I at #60, “Toxic” by Digga D at #61, “Good Days” by SZA at #64, “Whoopty” by CJ at #65, “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa at #66, “Afterglow” by Ed Sheeran at #68, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental at #69, “you broke me first” by Tate McRae at #71 and finally, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV at #75. I hope that next week is the last time I need to say “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV, not because the song is bad but that is a convoluted credit if I’ve ever seen one. In terms of gains and returning entries, it does get interesting. The only return is for “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #67, but our gains include “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #56, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Given at #42 thanks to the video, “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE at #36 off of the debut, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #32, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man at #29, “Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf at #24, “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan at #21, “Little Bit of Love” also by Grennan at #13, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #12 thanks to the video and three songs making their first entry into the top 10 after picking up the pace on the charts recently: “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #9 thanks to his album, “BED” by Joel Corry, RAYE and David Guetta at #8 and finally, to my dismay, “Latest Trends” by A1 x J1 at #2 thanks to a remix featuring Aitch. Sigh, okay, well, we have a... curious selection of new arrivals so let’s start with that.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “You’ve Done Enough” – Gorgon City and DRAMA

Produced by Gorgon City and DRAMA

Gorgon City are a British EDM duo who were particularly big back in 2014 or so when they had their top 10 hits, particularly “Ready for Your Love”, which peaked at #4, but they haven’t really had much success since in the UK or Europe in general. This time, however, they’ve clinched a spot in the top 75 by collaborating with DRAMA, another electronic duo except they’re from Chicago instead of north London and the vocalist here, Via Rosa, is actually from DRAMA and not some uncredited session vocalist or a sample, which surprised me because the vocals here are genuinely great and remind me a lot of these booming diva voices used so commonly in 90s house. In fact, I think this whole song is genuinely great, relying on a house groove that is pretty damn funky and some subtle keys making the foundation for a bouncy four-on-the-floor beat, with the shaky percussion just adding the spice on top of it. It helps that this chorus is pretty ethereal, with Rosa’s vocals booming over this angelic synth blend before a pretty ugly-sounding drop but that is absolutely on purpose, as the content here is about that struggle between trying to find someone and trying to better yourself so you feel like you’d be worthwhile to anyone you end up meeting, which is kind of a depressing cycle in many ways... not that I’ve experienced that, but it sounds like it warrants the DRAMA here. There are tons of intricacies in the productions here too that make the song a lot more complete, particularly in the vocal production and all the intrusive bass wobbles by the second chorus and drop, so, yeah, for once, the generic house tune debuting low on the chart is a pretty great one. I wish it went somewhere further so it sounded like an actual song but as is, without a real bridge, this is still a good, almost anthemic dance track.

#70 – “Rasputin” – Majestic and Boney M.

Produced by Majestic and Frank Farian

Boney M. are a pretty legendary disco group collected by producer Frank Farian of several Caribbean singers to make some of the most fun pop music of the 70s. One of the most interesting things about this band were the fact that they were immensely popular in the Soviet Union back when that existed, and some Soviet films even show their songs playing during high-ranking Soviet government meetings, which sounds like pure comedy. Funnily enough, “Rasputin” was the only song Boney M. were forbidden to play in the USSR, even though it was still a big hit there. The 1978 song, a #2 hit for the band in the UK, basically retells the story that led to infamous and fascinating Tsarist Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin being assassinated, with most claims in the song itself being true or at least as far as we know, although the song does mostly focus on how much of a womaniser he was. The original hit is equally fascinating as the guy himself, with a great typical disco sound, those iconic strings and the use of Russian instrument balalaikas in its mix just furthering that intrigue. Now, in 2021, the song became a hit on TikTok because... of course, and now this remix by a DJ and producer called Majestic, is charting on the UK Singles Chart. Why this remix and not the original song? Well, this is basically a French house remix of the song, using those house patterns not too dissimilar to Daft Punk or Stardust-type stuff, which makes perfect sense to remix a classic disco tune. I do prefer the original track about “Russia’s greatest love machine”, because it’s a lot more natural and the remix is kind of poorly done in some places if I’m being honest, but if this is how kids decide to experience this type of classic disco, I’m not going to complain. It’s a good song; I’m interested to see how this second chart run goes.

#53 – “DAYWALKER!” – Machine Gun Kelly featuring CORPSE

Produced by BaseXX, Machine Gun Kelly and SlimXX

Nope. No, no, no. I refuse. I’m completely fine with bringing pop-punk and post-hardcore stuff back, but if the ringleader is Machine Gun Kelly and he’s bringing out Corpse Husband to help him on this trap-metal garbage, I’m not even going to acknowledge it further than the fact that it exists and it’s probably not in MGK’s best interests to compare himself to Capitol Hill rioters. Otherwise, absolutely not. Nope. Not even going to give this the time of day.

#46 – “Addicted” – Jorja Smith

Produced by Compass

In stark contrast, here we have Jorja Smith’s new single to add to that confusing sophomore album roll-out that I feel has been delaying itself for two years now. This new song is about giving your all to a relationship and not having it reciprocated, but she paints this in a very odd way, painting herself as “too selfless” to leave and that her partner should be “addicted” to her, which seems like the wrong way to go about writing this entirely, especially if this instrumental is going to be the dullest blend of checked-out live percussion and a boring electric guitar loop, and Jorja Smith’s not going to sell this in a different way to how she sells her other songs, going for a subtle croon that just doesn’t make sense for a song where we’re clearly not supposed to think Jorja’s in the right for being this obsessive and somewhat hyperbolic about this relationship not going the way she planned. I could see this being done really well but the song is too weak and flimsy as is to grasp how to handle the content and I’m sorry but it just does not work for me.

#44 – “Day in the Life” – Central Cee

Produced by Frosty Beats

Central Cee released his debut mixtape, Wild West and, listen, there was a point to me not saying much about “DAYWALKER!” so I think Central Cee existing and giving me so little to work with will weaken that point even further. To be fair, I like the choir sample in this beat, even if the drop is going to be really awkwardly staggered by a loose 808 for no reason, and this drill beat never really feels like it keeps up with itself, especially because Central Cee might be the least interesting rapper in a crop of already desperate British rappers. He also says that rappers that use Auto-Tune don’t “really rap” or “really trap”, which is awkward considering some of this guy’s back catalogue, and also incredibly untrue. He also disses D-Block Europe pretty directly which, regardless of who it’s from or how famous DBE continue to get, always feels like punting down, so, yeah, this is worthless.

#43 – “On the Ground” – ROSÉ

Produced by 24, Jon Bellion, Ojivolta and Jordgen Odegard

This is the debut solo single from ROSÉ, one of the singers from K-pop group BLACKPINK, which explains my initial confusion to why this was so high. The label has enlisted Jon Bellion of all people to produce as they intend to push ROSÉ as a global hit-maker in her own right, given that this is part of a two-track EP so that if one track doesn’t do as well, fans could gravitate to another and that becomes the hit. See “Havana” or, really, how Drake releases his singles nowadays. Looking at some of her television appearances and the language surrounding that, it seems like they’ve been trying to push her as a soloist for a while, and given that she broke PSY’s record for most-viewed solo South Korean video in 24 hours with this song, I think it’s a success. Is the song itself any good? Well, to my surprise, it’s all in English. It now sits at 100 million views and really, there’s no way to distinguish that this is from Korea... which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, because the song is great, relying on this slick electric guitar pluck and ROSÉ’s vocals which, despite being drenched in reverb, sound really great, before the whole song is abruptly plunged into this distorted, bassy electro-pop void which is just a fascinating and kind of avant-garde choice for a pop song like this. The song doesn’t really develop further than that, pretty much repeating its own structure, but that drop with all the spliced-in backing vocals, is such an interesting catharsis itself that I think it makes up for that. The final drop does a lot different as well, going for a lead synth melody on the top of the mix that again sounds really great when paired with that mix and then the rising strings. I was tempted to write this song’s quirks off as shoddy K-pop songwriting but given the credits, especially Jon Bellion, I’m confident all of this nonsense is absolutely on purpose, and I love it. Check it out, I hope this becomes a hit outside of this debut week, although I really don’t think that’ll happen given it’s (ostensibly) a K-pop song and their western success is largely dominant on sales from fans. Regardless, I’m glad it debuted here in the first place as I wouldn’t have heard it otherwise.

#16 – “6 for 6” – Central Cee

Produced by Okami202, Sevon and Young Chencs

This is Cee’s sixth song to hit the chart, and hence he’s going “six for six”, even though only two of those singles were actually poised to stick around in any shape or form. He does seem to be going somewhere with this, particularly the direction I thought “Loading” would be going, as it uses a choir sample as the background to this janky UK drill beat... but it’s soon drowned-out and Cee himself is such a non-presence that it’s not worth paying attention to the guy’s content, let alone his lyrics which seem to try and be somewhat introspective about his drug-dealing and gang violence, but end up being incredibly shallow and not really saying anything, about as shallow as this instrumental. The outro would be a pretty nice piano interlude if it didn’t stop so abruptly and I’ve only got to hope that leads into a track on the album and isn’t just a mistake, because I’m not listening to that mixtape if my life depended on it. Another snooze from Central Cee, what a surprise.

#3 – “Patience” – KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G

Produced by Matt Schwartz

Remember when I said we had three songs making their first entry into the top 10? Yeah, turns out that I’m a compulsive liar since we actually have a fourth at #3, and I’m tempted to nope my way out of this one as well. What’s with this week and whiny, wannabe pop-punk singers collaborating with obnoxious YouTubers? I feel like I’m too old to cover this stuff every other week, and that’s saying something considering KSI himself is pushing 30 at this point, but regardless, I have to check out the song and to my surprise, it’s actually kind of decent. It goes for an 80s synth-rock vibe, with massive guitar tones and obviously not live drums that kind of undercut the pretty great bass groove here, but man, Polo G sounds surprisingly good on this production. His verse is pretty infectious, even if it ends up crushed at the end by YUNGBLUD’s hook, which sounds the least insufferable this guy has ever been, probably because of how the vocal production keeps him slightly in check. KSI himself might be the weakest link as he cannot sing at all, and the Auto-Tune in his verse is not helping, but I do like his David Bowie-interpolating ad-libs on the choruses (Yes, seriously). The bridge is a pathetic excuse of a bridge and the song’s mostly chorus – I’m kind of worried about KSI as a hit-maker going forward if he’s going to consistently contribute so little to his own singles, most of which have two other people on. I mean, it works as a short, inoffensive pop-rock song and not much else. I really wish this was Polo G’s song, actually, I think he deserves a second verse here.

Conclusion

Well, that week happened, that’s for sure. I’m going to give Best of the Week to the obvious outlier here, “On the Ground” by ROSÉ, but not without an Honourable Mention to Gorgon City and DRAMA for “You’ve Done Enough”. Worst of the Week is also going to the obvious outlier, “DAYWALKER!” by Machine Gun Kelly featuring Corpse Husband. Can I give a song I literally refused to review Worst of the Week? Yes, yes, I can. For Dishonourable Mention, just pick your Central Cee-flavoured poison. Here’s this week’s top 10:

I’ll see you next week for... Justin Bieber and Lana Del Rey. Damn, maybe I won’t see you next week.

[allenmendezsr]

How To Draw Animals Using The Lutz Method - Draw Disney-like Cartoons

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/how-to-draw-animals-using-the-lutz-method-draw-disney-like-cartoons/

How To Draw Animals Using The Lutz Method - Draw Disney-like Cartoons

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NOTE: This incredible method works for ANYONE… whether you’re already good at drawing and want to take your skills to the next level, or if you’ve never even drawn before but have always wanted to try…

From: Richard Hargreaves

Dear Friend,

If you are interested in learning how to draw animals, then this is going to be the most important information you’ll ever read…

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6 critical elements to remember when drawing a cat’s face…

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Members Download Access provided by HowToDrawAnimals.org. Sold by Clickbank, one of the World’s Most Trusted Online Retailers

Please note that the book image is for visualization purposes only and that the actual product is digital.

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Please note that the book image is for visualization purposes only and that the actual product is digital.

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Please note that the book and video images are for visualization purposes only and that the actual product is digital.

Members Download Access provided by HowToDrawAnimals.org. Sold by Clickbank, one of the World’s Most Trusted Online Retailers

Click Here To Order Securely Through Click Bank

Sincerely ,

Richard Hargreaves

P.S. Remember, you’re getting How To Draw Animals Using The Lutz Method – PLUS 3 hot bonuses collectively worth $204 that you’ll get for just $29.95. Just click the blue link below and you can order securely through click bank.

P.P.S. Also remember that you’re covered by my 100% no questions asked money back guarantee.

Members Download Access provided by HowToDrawAnimals.org. Sold by Clickbank, one of the World’s Most Trusted Online Retailers

Please note that the book and video images are for visualization purposes only and that the actual product is digital.

Click Here To Order Securely Through Click Bank

ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 917 S. Lusk Street, Suite 200, Boise Idaho, 83706, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.

[caveartfair]

Why AI Can’t Yet Predict Mark Rothko Paintings’ Auction Prices

Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

A popular art-world parlor game is predicting sale prices for masterworks in upcoming evening auctions. Just how much will someone pay for a dazzling painting by Claude Monet, an iconic sculpture by Jeff Koons, or a classic work by Mark Rothko? Earlier this year, the consignment of three Rothko paintings to Sotheby’s prompted us to build a model for predicting sale prices using artificial intelligence (AI) tools applied to historical Rothko sales data. While the analytic techniques we used were complicated, our approach to modeling was straightforward: combine information on the nature of the paintings sold (“supply”) with gauges for how many people may have the means and desire to acquire something so expensive (“demand”).

We explained in an earlier article that the best way to measure supply is by using digital images of paintings, their dimensions, and whether it is a work on paper or canvas. We also found that the best measures of demand are the number of billionaires in the world and the amount of wealth they control. When we put these supply-and-demand metrics together in May, they explained close to 95% of movements in prices paid at auction for Rothko paintings. While that was a tantalizingly high percentage, how did the model perform when predicting the future? And what do these results tell us about the market for Rothko’s paintings?

The SFMOMA Rothko

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1960. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

At the evening auction at Sotheby’s on May 16th, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) was selling a Rothko painting from 1960, one of seven Rothko works in its collection. Like many museums today, SFMOMA wants to buy works by women, people of color, and other overlooked or marginalized communities, but it lacks the funds to do so. Selling the Rothko would hopefully provide the museum with the fuel it needs to achieve its ambitions.

Lot 12 was hanging where it could not be missed: at the front of the room near the auctioneer, a suitable spot for what could have been the most expensive artwork sold that night. Sotheby’s estimated that it would sell for a hammer price between $35 million and $50 million. But the successful bidder would also have to pay the auction house’s buyer’s premium on top of that, which equals 25% of the hammer price up to and including $400,000; 20% of the amount between $400,000 and $4 million; and then 13.9% on the amount in excess of $4 million. With the buyer’s premium, Sotheby’s was forecasting that the painting would go for a figure between $40.1 million and $57.2 million. After running the painting through our AI algorithm, the model predicted it would sell for $42.3 million (hammer price plus buyer’s premium), toward the lower end of what Sotheby’s estimated.

In the months leading up to the sale, Sotheby’s specialists no doubt spent countless hours trying to develop interest in the painting—perhaps from Silicon Valley tech investors soon to be flush with cash from the Uber IPO, or SFMOMA trustees with emotional connections to the work, or Chinese billionaires looking to put offshore cash to work in something that would look splendid in new apartments overlooking Central Park. But as the sale began, these specialists knew their hopes and dreams could easily be dashed if bidders elected to sit on their hands or refused to engage in a bidding war. To hedge against this, SFMOMA chose to sell the work with a guarantee, meaning the museum would receive at least the (confidential) minimum guarantee amount it negotiated with Sotheby’s when consigning the work to the auction house.

Bidding for the painting was slow, with what appeared to be fewer than five bidders. Contrary to popular belief, there are just not that many people in the world with the means and desire to buy an artwork at this price point. Bidding soon stalled around $37 million (or $42.7 million with buyer’s premium), teasingly close to our AI model’s prediction. But the auctioneer did not take the lull as a sign that the sale was over. His patience was ultimately rewarded when bidders pushed the final hammer price to $43.8 million (or $50.1 million with the buyer’s premium). Respectful applause filled the auction room with the tap of the auctioneer’s gavel.

How did the model do? The AI forecast was off by 15.6%, a much larger margin than the deviations we found when training the model on historical data. A possible explanation for the higher price may be the painting’s special provenance: Many auction specialists believe collectors are willing to pay a premium for museum property relative to what they would otherwise pay for a similar object. In any event, the bidding gods that night were certainly smiling on the SFMOMA painting, but they capriciously withheld their affections when the other two Rothkos went up for sale.

The Steinberg Rothkos

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Red and Burgundy Over Blue), 1969. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Red on Red), 1969. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Canadian businessman Arnold Steinberg and his wife, Blema, a professor at McGill University, were passionate collectors of post-war and contemporary art. Their heirs elected to sell over 100 valuable works from their collection—assembled from the mid-1960s through 2014—at Sotheby’s. Two Rothko paintings on paper from 1969 were up just three lots after the SFMOMA painting; perhaps an underbidder would elect to buy one as a consolation prize.

The larger of the two works, Untitled (Red and Burgundy Over Blue), had a pre-sale estimate between $9 million and $12 million, or $10.5 million and $13.9 million with buyer’s premium. Our artificial intelligence model predicted that lot 15 would sell for $16.6 million, above the top end of the auction estimates, which would make it the second–most expensive Rothko work on paper to sell at auction. The second work, Untitled (Red on Red), was smaller, but notable for its bright-red palette. Sotheby’s estimated it would go for a hammer price between $7 million and $10 million, or $8.2 million and $11.6 million with the buyer’s premium. Given its appealing color scheme, our model predicted that lot 16 would sell for $13.7 million. Unlike the SFMOMA painting, neither of these works were being sold with a guarantee. But given the strong showing on lot 12, the auctioneer and the heirs were probably anticipating great interest in the works, perhaps even a bidding war.

Auctioneers try to hide their machinations, but it soon became clear that most of the bidders interested in lot 15 were of the imaginary type. The auctioneer took chandelier bids up to one bidding increment below the reserve price, which is where he must stop so that legitimate bidders can buy the work at the reserve. After a very pregnant pause, a lone phone bidder emerged with a $9 million bid (or $10.5 million including buyer’s premium). The auctioneer’s job was now clear: Don’t panic, but wait for it to sink into the minds of other potential bidders that the painting could sell very shortly for that amount unless they jumped in.

The auctioneer soon turned his attention to someone sitting in the very front of the room: Marc Glimcher, president and CEO of Pace, the gallery that represents the Rothko estate. The auctioneer tried repeatedly to cajole him to bid, but Glimcher declined. Perhaps he had other works on paper by the artist back at his gallery that he preferred to sell instead of investing capital in another. When it became clear the auctioneer’s gambit was not working, and that no one else was interested in bidding, he brought the sale to a close.

Lot 16 followed the same dance with chandelier bids into a quiet auction room. The awkward space was finally pierced when a phone bidder came in at $7 million ($8.2 million with buyer’s premium), the low end of the auction estimate. Knowing it was the end of the game, the auctioneer quickly pronounced the lot “sold.”

How did the model do? Very poorly. The AI estimates were about 60% higher than what the works sold for. The model was expecting much stronger demand, which did not materialize that night. Having the works appear after the SFMOMA painting as a consolation prize was smart positioning by Sotheby’s. But with the sale occurring at the end of a packed week of auctions, plus after the successful Frieze and TEFAF art fairs earlier in the month, maybe collectors considering the Steinberg Rothkos had already bought other things. Being late in the sales calendar can disadvantage consignors.

Rothko deal-making

Did the buyer(s) of the works on paper get a deal? Two measures of value say yes. First, Sotheby’s sold a similar Rothko work on paper last year in its May evening auction. It was from 1969, the same year as the Steinberg Rothkos. Smaller than Untitled (Red and Burgundy Over Blue) but about the same size as Untitled (Red on Red), you might expect some sort of pricing parity between works sold within such a short period, but the painting offered in May 2018 went for $18.9 million—completely out of whack with the much lower May 2019 results.

A second measure of value is found by comparing the all-in sale price to the low end of the auction estimates. Both Steinberg Rothkos sold for almost 1.2 times their low estimates, well below the 1.8 average for the other 23 Rothko works on paper from what are considered his classic years (1951–70) that sold at auction since 2010.

While these measures suggest the buyer(s) got “a deal,” what’s causing such fragility in the demand for Rothko works on paper? Statistical models—no matter how sophisticated—are generally poor predictors of turning points because they are trained using historical data. But when models fail, it can sometimes be a signal that changes are afoot. While Rothko’s position in the history of Abstract Expressionism is secure, pricing for his work is subject to the whims of today’s collectors.

Over the past few years, there’s been a noticeable shift among institutional and private collectors to focus more of their time and resources on buying artworks by women, people of color, and other overlooked or marginalized communities. This trend is likely to continue for some time, impacting people’s willingness to pay big prices for works by important male artists in the historical canon. For the price of a single Rothko work on paper, collectors could buy iconic works by Sam Gilliam, Ruth Asawa, and Alice Neel—and still have some money left over in their pockets. The lower prices paid this season for the Steinberg Rothkos may be the new normal.

from Artsy News