#but if we compare pop music to marvel movies then easy listening is like... a turbocondensed marvel movie

[leatherbookmark]

"this thing is A" =/= "other things, in contrast, are B"

"this song is (in the) 'easy listening' (genre)" =/= "other songs are difficult to listen to"

"superhero movies are simple to understand and entertaining" =/= "non-superhero movies are overly complex and boring"

etc, etc

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

A love/hate review of The Division game and all the things I wish it could have been. Please note that as of this point I have not played the massive update that supposedly took place to ‘fix’ the game. This critique is opinion based and if you love (or hate) the game more then I do feel to let me know how/why. Just be respectful of your dissent of my review.

I am of two mindsets about this game in the fact I thought it was a great concept and I generally enjoyed the setting and gameplay (to some degree) but on the other hand, the storytelling was less than exceptional, they had with PVP element and RPG damage system which ruined the game.

New York City Setting (Loved) Reading up on this game I appreciated the groundwork the developer put into getting the setting right. How they contacted with real government agencies to try accurately portray the JTF accurately and took thousands of pictures of New York to capture the city. Like a winter cemetery with monolithic skyscrapers looking like dark pillars reaching towards the sky from the very beginning you knew you were in the Big Apple. There are many games that take liberties with real-world cities in games by shrinking them down to manageable sizes, you can love GTA all you want but if you lived in LA you know San Andrea is like a shadow compared to the real thing. The Division had no such issue as almost every second (save the underground/sewer levels) kept me believing that I was elite agent fighting in for New York.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Never (Hated) An aspect of the game that really bothered me was “Always Shooting” approach to the gameplay. Find a group of guys in the street with guns? Shoot them. Meet a fellow agent in the Dark Zone? Think about shooting them. Find two people over a body? Shoot them too. I understand this was a gun game but this really undercut the morality and humanity that could have made this game great. In eyes of the developer, everyone was guilty of something but by the rules of probability, not everyone in the city who was armed had to be a ‘bad guy’. Those group of men standing with guns on the corner? Neighborhood watch protecting their community. The two guys over the body in the alleyway? Found it like that and looking for ID or supplies.

Point is they could have easily put a verbal engagement into the game where you get the drop on somebody and allow them to surrender peacefully. Give a Mass Effect conversation wheel where you can get to the root of what the hell they are doing and either let them go, arrest them, rob them or even (if they do end up being bad) shoot them. I don't believe video games desensitize kids but they don't make me arguing their case for them any easier when the only option is to kill kill kill. 

Story Telling (Love/Hate) The use of the hologram playback of events was an original way of telling stories and gives you an almost interactive perspective on what transpired before. As did listening to the voice recordings, hunting down missing agents and reading the walls also helped paint the city that is in utter chaos. 

Perhaps I spoiled myself with the Brian Wood comic DMZ (totally worth the read) which really dove into a New York warzone setting but I felt like the developers took the story to a point and then just kind of stopped. No long-term plot, no secondary missions with a rich fiction to delve into or even a good use of the secondary characters who made up the JTF. This a consistent issue with most Tom Clancy games (save the Splinter Cell series which is linear but fun as hell). I would have happily given up the whole ‘Dark Zone’ for investment in more plot but most companies look to multiplayer now as the measure of success instead of having the fans keep a lasting impression in their mind like Mass Effect or other story-driven games. I think that metric of success is simply wrong.

Death By A Thousand Bullets (Hate) Probably the BIGGEST failure of the game was the DPS element to the guns. Nothing like being a firefight with a guy and pumping him with hundreds of bullets and only taking away a sliver of his health. I understand why they wanted to have a quality of weapons aspect of the game to encourage people to try/loot new weapons but going this route really just ruined the experience. They could have easily gone with a gun jamming up over time requiring maintenance or switching it out for something new to encourage alternative firearms. They did a really good job with the weapons system of Ghost Recon: Wildlands and for some reason omitted this game from that quality weapons system.

I just marvel the most at the fact that there was a probably an office somewhere full of developers creating this game and someone said “Hey shouldn't a bullet to the head kill a guy?” and someone saying “No, he is a level 13 and you’re only a level 2, therefore, your bullets do less damage!” “That doesn't make any sense...” “Shut up, Derek. No one likes you.” Did it actually play out like that but I promise you someone had a conversation like that AT LEAST once.

Missed Opportunities (Love/Hate) Getting passed the nitpicky elements above let's talk about some things it could/should have been. There was so much potential with this game for alternative missions, game modes and ways to play that I wish some developer might correct in the next version of this game.

The Convoy Mission - Seems simple enough but in a city full of cars, there should have been convoy mission where an APC or a group of Humvees needed to drive a couple blocks to help resupply one of the safe houses. Walking alongside it, dealing with the occasional attack and smashing open windows of cars that are in the way and push them to the side. Seems simple but a diversity of missions is never a bad thing.

Reclamation Tug-O-War - Would have been great to have seen a game mode where you hold your block and work to liberate surrounding areas from the various factions which sounds simple but also have those factions push back trying to reclaim blocks you control. This would have provided a replayable element where you take areas, establish a JTF presence and hold them until the city is under control.

Establishing Safe Houses - Like the Reclamation idea, when you set up a safe house it should have not simply been unlocked and then done. I would have enjoyed having missions focus on the success of these alternative safe house location away from the main base with tangible perks for doing a job well done. Could be complex like defend it from attack, find a new radio so they can keep in contact with HQ, or something simple like deliver the blankets where you keep the people happy and alive.

Zombie Mode - Lots of people shit on zombie mod mostly because they are dime a dozen but I doubt anyone could argue that this setting (the city itself) doesn't look like a setup for a zombie movie. It would be amazing to have a co-op horde mode being a separate playable game mode for players.

The Dark Zone (Hate) We know why they put this into the game but fuck me if it doesn't make any sense. “Hey! My radio stopped working over here.” *Shakes it* “Guess I can let my psychopath flag fly now and kill other agents.” This REALLY cut into the Achilles tendon and dropped the game to a new low. I already talked about how Shoot First, Ask Questions never basically was a green light for murdering anyone you came across but this game mode plays to the worse aspect of gaming culture.

Co-Op (Love) I wanted to end on two high notes after ripping into the game with so much hate. I enjoy games with a Co-Op element where 2 or more players join me in the world to set things right. There is always chance that one of my friends will flashbang me on purpose to piss me off but for the most part, it enhances the experience and the Division does this well, making Co-Op a feature and not a mandatory function for enjoyment.

Ola Strandh (Love) A special shout-out to the composer of the game's score. While I did not notice the soundtrack to much while playing the game, the score eventually popped up on my Spotify and with some easy listening, I started to appreciate the complexity of the music and the use of sounds to create an atmosphere. I would suggest giving it a listen and if you like composed movie/game scores adding this to your playlist wouldn't be all that bad.

Conclusion You’re a special agent with the license to kill murdering your way through a civilian population that was basically abandoned by their government during the quarantine. Kinda hard to have a moral footing when you think about the game like that. The story itself was unrealized and the RPG element to the game (along with PVP) killed the immersion that could have made this game epic. I leave the weapon/gear perk element in my RPG’s with the suspension of belief of ‘because fucking magic” but it has no place in the realistic shooters like this.  I will probably play it again as there was that update but I doubt they did the overhaul that this game badly needed. Regards Michael California

[fakesam]

Belated Black Panther Thoughts

Everything happening regarding Black Panther right now feels like a miracle. You can only congratulate a giant, increasingly powerful conglomerate so much for realizing black money runs the same as white money, but it is still a moment to be celebrated. Seeing a movie this proudly black in the limelight, with such a large budget and plenty of promotional backing, is delightfully paradoxical given the toxic whiteness infecting the national atmosphere from the top down. This movie dropped at the right time. The biggest individual piece of promo comes courtesy of Black Panther: The Album, curated by Kendrick Lamar and the rest of the Top Dawg Entertainment braintrust. Licensed movie soundtracks have experienced something like renaissance over the last couple years, a business maneuver congealing the interests of film studios looking for anything to boost social media traffic and musicians to get some extra exposure and a decent payday. The results of these partnerships has been mixed at best, even when the Best Rapper Alive is involved. Remember when Kendrick rapped over an overly macho remix of Tame Impala’s “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”? Most people don’t.

Even with this project, it was easy to develop some cynicism about the final results. Kendrick has become more and more intransigent about being the voice of the voiceless, but he’s hasn't been above easy mainstream pop dollars in the past. Man gave verses to Taylor Swift and Maroon 5, and performed with Imagine Dragons. “All The Stars”, the most successful single off The Album, is a pleasant enough pop-rap hit that struts perfectly over the end credits of a blockbuster, but it lacks the depth of feeling that has made Lamar the current Poet Laureate of Black America. There’s also “Pray For Me”, a Weeknd and Kendrick collab that sounds like it was salvaged off the Starboy cutting room floor. These songs are fine, but eminently forgettable. Thankfully, these tracks are clear outliers, the lone examples of mainstream genuflecting across the entire project. The uniqueness and specificity that makes Black Panther so appealing as a film is also apparent in the sprawling sonic odyssey of its soundtrack. It’s better than anyone could've hoped for.

The playlist era of album design, gives credence to the worst impulses of people just trying to get paid, narrative coherence be damned. Migos’ Culture II was ruined by an engorged tracklist that led to a runtime comparable to most of the nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars. Twenty-four songs was at least ten too many, but who needs an editor when the penalty for choosing quantity over quality is so minimal? But it’s the perfect format for a movie soundtrack.

Kendrick’s ability as a tastemaker has never really been a thing to consider until now. His albums are hermetically-sealed portraits of his psyche, exploring his personal tensions and how they’re informed by his personal history and the lineage of black strife in America. This intricate exploration of his inner self doesn’t leave much room for other voices - the featured artists welcomed into his world are brought in for a very specific purpose. Kendrick is also very selective about the songs of other artists he’s willing to jump on. Combine that with his social media reticence, and the lists of contemporaries that Kendrick listens to are tantalizingly vague. There’s an undeniable intrigue to learning who a near-consensus superstar genius deems worthy of the aux cord. Consciously leeching on to the burgeoning movements of younger rappers is a tactic that Drake has perfected over the years. The two current titans of hip-hop have been acting out a musical cold war for the last couple years, so it’s tempting in a sense to think of Black Panther: The Album as Kendrick running with Drake’s idea of a “playlist project” that he tried to make happen with the release of More Life.

But it’s much more tempting to talk about the sumptuous quality of this music on hand. The litany of artists brought together to assemble this album, a mix of established stars, burgeoning upstarts and total unknowns, bring disparate genres and musical approaches to the table, all cohesively strung together under the diasporic flag of black excellence.

It’s obvious in hindsight to see why Kendrick was so attracted to the project that he asked to oversee the entire soundtrack after watching snippets of the film during its production. The divide between T’Challa and Killmonger’s views on progress mirrors the internal strife that has Kendrick has been ruminating on his entire career. TDE took their role as gatekeepers seriously, drawing delineations between the conflicts of the movie and the endless struggle that is sadly inherent with the black experience. Black Panther could never have the intimate complexity of a solo Kendrick record, but it details the black experience with more nuance than many albums told from one perspective. The strokes are broad, but the completed painting is still worthy of admiration.

Most of TDE shows up in some form. SZA provides the hook on the aforementioned “All the Stars”, Schoolboy Q reminds us of his undeniable charisma on “X”. Ab-Soul puts together his first good verse since his 2012 album Control System on “Bloody Waters”. We even get a glimpse of the lesser seen, frivolous Kendrick on “Big Shot”, a bouncy, “New Freezer” interpolating Travis Scott collab that doubles as the latest entry in the “Dope Rap Songs built around a Flute Sample” pantheon. from rap to pop to heavily indebted house music from South Africa. But it’s the newer faces that making their formal introduction to larger audiences that makes this album genuinely exciting. SOB x RBE have received most of the acclaim for their scene-stealing performance on “Paramedic”, and that praise is warranted, but they’re not the only up and comers who killed it. Jorja Smith makes a war march sound like heaven on “I Am”, and South African artists Yugen Blakrok and Babes Wodumo make their case for international renown on “Opps” and the South African house jam “Redemption”. Kendrick is present on every song - his contributions ranging from being the best rapper alive to windy background vocalist - but he’s very much a secondary figure in the works of others.

It’s bears repeating how remarkable it is that this thing has been allowed to exist. That Future inhales a bunch of helium, interpolates Slick Rick, and asks for a blowjob with one absurdly entertaining turn of phrase. Someone at Marvel signed off on all of this. We should all be thankful for that man or woman or committee of persons. What could’ve been a simple cash grab for TDE becomes something much more stirring and exciting thanks to a commitment to take the source material seriously enough to use it as a launching point for work that is both evocative and entertaining. A perfect table setter for the main event.

As I sat in the chair of the theater waiting for the movie to start, I was slightly nervous about the quality of the movie. The hype cycle had spun into overdrive had built the movie to stratospheric heights. Black Panther stopped being a movie and became a religious communion. That’s a lot to live up to. Aside from the inescapable expectations created by fans, Marvel’s cinematic spell lost their power over me years ago, as the negative aspects of the “Movies as TV episodes” system became more glaring. Nothing of consequence ever happened and the action scenes were overwrought and anticlimactic, antiseptic, CGI-soaked action that put me to sleep. The last comic book movie I enjoyed without much reservation was the first Guardians of the Galaxy, way back in 2014, 87 years ago. Even Wonder Woman, one of the rare superhero films allowed to take some risks - as much as giving women the chance to be all-powerful warriors without the prompting of a man counts as a risk to some people - lost me during the third act when Gal Gadot fought a Bloodborne boss yelling corny “Give In To Evil and Join Me!!!!!!!” dialogue in the middle of a flaming airfield. When comic book movies go extremely comic book-y, I lose all interest. My expectations were middling despite the widespread adoration of the movie that compelled me to go see it in the first place. Not quite as cynical as I tend to be, but not wearing a T’Challa costume to the theater.

By the time the entire elite class of Wakanda was shimmying from on high while T’Challa fought for the throne of this Afro-futurist utopia (the first time this happens), I realized how wrong my assumptions were. I didn’t realize how much I needed this movie to exist. Just witnessing this much blackness - a proud, intelligent, secure version of blackness - actively enriched me while I was watching it. The power of representation isn’t lost on me, but I believed I was past the point where I would experience such gratification from a giant blockbuster. I underestimated how affirming it would be to see this much black prosperity on film. It’s amazing how impactful the casting of black actors in roles usually given to white people can be. I’m jealous of little kids who can look up to Shuri or T’Challa or Nakia and feel a little less ashamed of themselves at a young age. M’Baku’s capacity to be large and menacing and also capable of telling jokes about cannibalism is magical. I would watch all of these characters do anything for hours. Instant icons, all of them.  

Black Panther also solves the eternal villain problem that’s been flummoxing superhero films since Heath Ledger died. Killmonger is incredible. He is still a villain, since his endgame of choice is to start a literal race war, but his motivations and reasoning up to that point are totally understandable. From an outsider’s perspective, Wakanda is this hovel of selfish conservatism that does nothing to stop systemic oppression and kills anyone who whispers about their existence too loudly. Sitting pretty in their Vibranium-powered towers above the struggle. It’d be easy to resent Wakanda if you’ve never seen Shuri pranking T’Challa in her lab. The most logical emotion for him is anger. He went out like a G, too. That last line was perfect. I would have liked to see more of a conversation between Killmonger and T’Challa before he took over, but you can only hope for so much civil rights philosophizing in a blockbuster. It was enough to feel like the obligatory third act battle was had actual stakes. Black Panther finally made the Game of Thrones fandom sensible to me. Political maneuvering can be way more engaging than I realized. Blame George Lucas for that train of thought.

I find it hard to think about this movie in any critical sense because I’m so happy that it was allowed to exist in this form. After sleeping on it, I will concede that the South Korea sequence didn’t need to be that long. The “Andy Serkis is a Soundcloud rapper” goof was an airball. But anyone who would rather complain about about the scene’s usefulness as a plot device more so than celebrate the badassery of Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira is not to be trusted. Same goes for the fact that this movie has a sense of humor that can’t be reduced to just Tony Stark saying something snarky or tryhard quirkiness, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 style. They really let Ryan Coogler do that shit. Black Panther is the first Marvel movie that was clearly in the hands of an auteur, with a vision uncompromised by studio notes or the compulsion to tie itself to the rest of Marvel Cinematic Universe. This movie never feigns interest in the machinations of the Avengers or whatever wold-destroying portal they need to destroy, and thank god for that. The narrowness of the story lends itself to much more in-depth character development and a sense of place. It rarely feels or looks like other Marvel movies. Wakanda is too good for reality, but the open designs of the shopping areas and the impeccable fashion of the citizens tied into the history of African culture in a way that's easy to intuit. Shoutout to the Codeine Crazy-esque skyline in T’Challa’s first herb-induced vision. Shoutout to the guy with the giant disc in his mouth. Man had fits for days.

Even my mom loved it. I saw the movie with her and Danai Gurira’s performance was so good that she thought about shaving her own head in her honor. She also said she wanted braids like Angela Bassett’s character, but quickly decided against it because of the time commitment to getting such a hairstyle. But getting that level of inspiration from a Marvel movie spells out how special Black Panther is. I rarely watch movies with her anymore. Our tastes have mostly split as I’ve grown up. I haven’t seen her that giddy walking out of the theater since… ever? Her love of the movie really made it clear how special this moment is for the culture. I kinda hate that I said for the culture, but I don’t know how to end this.  Many thanks to Ryan Coogler and company for giving me that moment. Uhhhhhhhhhh bye.

[gushingaboutgames]

Sega Dreamcast

I hated middle school. There’s a whole swath of memories I’d rather do without as far as the years 1999 through 2002 are concerned. There is, however, one memory I hold near and dear to my heart during this time frame. After reading about it in magazines and being really excited for it, my mother took me to Toys’R’Us one evening to get me a Sega Dreamcast. We brought that puppy home with a copy of Sonic Adventure, hooked it up, fired it up, and took it all in. As the opening cinematic played on my TV, Mum said “It’s like playing a movie!”

Boy, if we only knew what games would go on to look like now.

The Dreamcast was, and to this day remains, my all time favorite console. It’s the swan song of a company that was perhaps a bit too ambitious for its own good, a marvel of gaming technology many years ahead of its time, and home to some of the best and most unique games to ever come out.

At the time of its release, the Dreamcast was the most graphically powerful console on the market. Sony’s Playstation boasted 32-bit graphics, and the Nintendo 64 had double that, at -wait for it- 64 bits. Dreamcast had double of that: 128 bits of beautiful graphics, thanks to the GD-ROM, a proprietary disc format born from squeezing every bit of memory out of a regular old CD as was physically possible, before DVDs and Blu-Ray became as ubiquitous as they are today.

Even the method of memory storage was unlike its competitors; the standard memory card for the Dreamcast was the Visual Memory Unit (VMU), a cross between a memory card and a Gameboy that let you manage data and download minigames to extend the functionality of many games. The only other thing like it that I can think of being made is Sony’s Pocketstation, and that never saw the light of day outside of Japan. You would not believe the number of button-cell batteries I burned through caring for Chao on the go.

Of course, all of the fancy tech and cool gadgets wouldn’t amount to much if the games on offer weren’t fun at all. Tiger’s Game.Com bragged of being a versatily console and handheld device, but the games for it all stank like a fragrant dog poop laying on the sidewalk on a hot Floridian summer day. Thankfully, fun games were something the Dreamcast had no shortage of, even in the brief few years that it was on the market, a slew of which I’d like to bring attention to.

Sonic Adventure 1 & 2

Maybe they haven’t aged as well as I’d like to think, but DAYUM if these weren’t some fun games back in the day. Sonic has always struggled with 3D, but the first attempts at true 3D Sonic games remain quite novel. The first Sonic Adventure had different play styles for each character, some of which were great (Sonic and Gamma, for me at least), others...not so much (the less said about Big, the better), in addition to, for its time, an intricate plot with each character’s story intertwining and playing out differently depending on which character you’re playing as.

Sonic Adventure 2, meanwhile, streamlined the gameplay and improved upon some of the first game’s flaws, cutting out the non-platforming related stages (aside from the treasure hunting stages, which are a touch better than in the first game). It’s story was also very compelling, being one of the darkest storylines in the entire series; government conspiracies, weapons of mass destruction, fucking murder! Maybe that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think we can all agree that SA2 handled “dark and gritty” a lot better than Shadow the Hedgehog’s stand-alone game.

Both games also featured a mini-game that could prove to be just as addicting, if not more so, than the games proper: Chao Gardens. Chao were little, adorable water monsters that players could raise like virtual pets, their popularity likely owed in part to the ubiquity of other virtual pets like Tamagotchi near the end of the millennium, as well as how easy-going and casual raising a Chao was compared to a Digi-Pet that would not wait for you to clean its shit up: you can enter and leave Chao Gardens freely, and you wouldn’t have to worry of your Chao dying of neglect in your absence. There’s also very deep mechanics at work for raising Chao, with their growth and evolution depending heavily on how well you raise them, what animals you give them, and what fruits you feed them, all so you can have them participate in races. The aforementioned VMU also expanded Chao functionality considerably, letting you raise them anywhere you wanted.

Shenmue

My relationship with Shenmue, these days, is very much that of a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, Shenmue popularized two aspects of gaming today that I loathe; Quick-Time Events, and over-blown game budgets (this game would’ve had to be bought by every DC owner TWICE before it could break even). On the other hand, there’s no denying that this game was a labor of love by Yu Suzuki. The attention to detail in Ryo Hazuki’s hometown of Yokosuka is staggering. Everything you can imagine can be interacted with, down to the last dresser drawer in Ryo’s house. Every resident of Yokosuka was unique from the others and had their own behaviors that they would go through, unlike every other NPC in the town, or other games for that matter. The story may be a tad formulaic, and most of the voice work left something to be desired, but the world of Shenmue was one that was very fun to explore.

Plus, this game introduced me to Space Harrier. If that’s not a good thing, you tell me what is.

Jet Set Radio

I had to convince my mother this game wouldn’t turn me into a graffiti-painting delinquent. It was a hard sell, but it paid off, and boy am I glad it did.

Jet Set Radio is very much unlike other games, then and today even. This was the game that helped to popularize cel-shaded graphics; the thick black outlines around the character models made this game look like an anime come to life, and eventually paved the way for the wicked-awesome graphics we see today from Arc System Works with Guilty Gear XRD and Dragonball FighterZ. The idea of playing a roller-blading hooligan throwing tags around the city and evading the police was also unique, and kept players on their toes as techno music accompanies their shenanigans. The game was a bit on the short side, but was challenging and fun enough that multiple playthroughs were warranted.

Making my own graffiti tags was also quite the timesink.

Phantasy Star Online

I may be a late bloomer to the Phantasy Star series, but it has become one very dear to me for helping me meet some of my closest friends (Hi, Tara!).

Phantasy Star was a series of JRPGs by Sega meant to compete with other big franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The original PSO, on the other hand, is an online multiplayer dungeon crawler that would change the course of the series from that point forward. As interstellar colonists investigating mysterious phenomena on an alien planet, players would delve into unique locals with characters they would create themselves to slay monsters, collect valuable items, and unravel the mysteries of the planet Ragol.

The original PSO is also very notable for its attempt to break the language barrier with a unique conversation system. While good ol’ fashioned keyboards remained in vogue, players also had the option of constructing sentences to transmit to other players in the area or party in those players’ native languages. Using this system, you could send a message saying “Help! This dragon is too powerful!”, and your friend in Japan would read it as “助けて！この龍は強すぎる！” It may not have seen much use, since players are more likely to congregate and play with those that can speak a common language fluently, but it was very kind of Sega to provide the option.

One thing that gets me straight in the feels is something from the original beta trailer for this game: “The world of Phantasy Star Online lasts for an eternity!” It is not uncommon for trailers and developers to hype games up with hyperbole (just ask Peter Molyneaux), but this is a statement that has held true for PSO! Even after the last official server for the last iteration of PSO shut down in 2008, private servers continue to run the game to this day, ensuring that the world of PSO truly remains eternal. Even with a proper sequel Phantasy Star Online 2 proving to be a pop culture staple in Japan, the original PSO remains one of the most beloved and enduring MMOs in history.

Skies of Arcadia

I’ve got friends who would skin my hide and leave me to hang like the Predator if I didn’t mention this.

Just about every console since the NES has a JRPG, and the Dreamcast is no exception. While Phantasy Star shifted towards MMO territory, those hoping for a sweeping single-player adventure still had Skies of Arcadia. As the daring sky pirate Vyse and his motley crew of adventurers, players fought to stop an evil empire from awakening an ancient evil while flying across a world of floating continents in a kickass airship. This game is among the most challenging JRPGs in the genre; a clever mind and strategic acumen are needed to survive battles with other pirates, monsters, and rival airships. The world of the game is also incredibly beautiful; I personally think it has much in common with Castle in the Sky, my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film. The soundtrack compliments the game incredibly, and is a joy to listen to by itself.

---

There are plenty of other games that made the Dreamcast incredible, but this article is long enough as it is, so I’ll have to give those games their proper due later. Suffice to say, though, the Dreamcast is a historical console that remains one of the most beloved in the history of the medium, not only by myself, but by hundreds of thousands of gamers the world over. It may have only been on the market for a few years, but it is said that the brightest stars are the ones that burn out the quickest.

And make no mistake, the Dreamcast is one of the brightest stars there ever was.

[perhapsthevision]

ok I don’t think there are any security questions in here so why not

Tagged by my sister @prodigaldaughteralice​. Also, tumblr is bizarrely laggy so now I'm typing long posts in a text editor like it's 2005...

1. Coke or Pepsi: I don't actually dislike cola any more, but I also don't drink it enough to have an opinion or be able to tell the difference.  Anyway, I'm white so I can hand anything to a cop and be okay :p

2. Disney or Dreamworks: I can't tell if Dreamworks actually hasn't made anything good lately, or if knocking Dreamworks has just become a meme.  But their old stuff was good.  Disney always makes a few really good things, and then a lot of dreck.  But I kind of resent them from keeping anything from passing into the public domain, as long as their lawyers have money.

3. Coffee or Tea: I probably drink more coffee per day, but tea is the one I have opinions about.  I drink coffee with a lot of milk and am just looking for something that doesn't taste nasty; tea we keep a lot of varieties of and pick based on how we're feeling.

4. Books or Movies:  In the abstract I tend to prefer books, but I enjoy both.  

5. Windows or Mac: I typically prefer Apple stuff and my primary computer will probably always be a Mac.  But it is one of my someday goals to build a PC to act as a media/game center.  

6. DC or Marvel: I'm not that invested but I think there's more Marvel stuff I like.

7. X-box or Playstation: I've always had Playstation consoles but I have nothing in particular against the XBox line that I know of.

8. Dragon Age or Mass Effect: I stopped playing DA:I when I learned Cassandra was straight and I've never had access to the ME line of games.  But I'd still give this to ME since my partner loves them and he's showed me hilarious stuff from them.  

9. Night Owl or Early Riser: I really enjoy being up late, sleeping, and being up early, so I think my chronotype is officially "gets all her sleep in a time machine".  But when I was really little I was a super early riser and I wouldn't be surprised if my body eventually shifts back toward that.

10. Cards or Chess: There's a running joke about me hating chess but I'm not that into card games either.  

11. Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate for most purposes but my test of an ice cream brand is whether or not they can make a really good cream or vanilla.

12. Vans or Converse: I haven't really found either to be supportive enough for me to wear.

13. Lavallan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar: Apparently this is a DA thing?

14. Fluff or Angst:  I don't really like either if it's just that and no plot.  But I guess I'd go with fluff because lately I don't like even very good media that are just All About Pain.    

15. Beach or Forest: Forest, but the beach can be beautiful too.

16. Dogs or Cats: I prefer cats but dogs are pretty great.  If I had a giant house with a big yard I'd give my cat his own personal army of large dogs to ride into battle.

17. Clear Skies or Rain:  I've lived somewhere really rainy for eight years and I loved it, especially since I'm light sensitive and sunburn super easily, but lately I've been really into clear skies for weird psychological reasons.  (OK, not that weird: someone I care about a lot passed away and then we kept having storms and rain.)

18. Cooking or Eating Out: I make the majority of the food we eat, and lately I've been trying to spend more of our food budget on good food to cook and less on going out to eat, but there's a great food scene here so I really do enjoy going to restaurants and food carts.  

19. Spicy Food or Mild:  I like it when the person at the spice store is like "it scares me that you're buying this"

20. Halloween/Samhain or Solstice/Yule/Christmas: Christmas is my favorite holiday.  My family tends to come together and most of us have time off from work to spend together, and then we get to both give and receive presents, and the cookies are good.  Kids don't come by where I live and I was never into Halloween parties, so Halloween kind of fell off after I got too old to trick or treat myself.

21. Little too cold or little too hot: Little too cold -- but lots too hot.

22. Superpower: There are others that would do more good in the world but for myself, flight or time travel.

23. Animation or Live Action: There are a lot more live action things than animated things, so it seems unfair to compare them.

24. Paragon or Renegade: Like I said I haven't played ME so I never had to pick.  In general, I usually want to play evil as amoral/practical, and way too many games instead present save puppies vs kick puppies, which pisses me off.  Also, when it seems like you're picking good for less reward vs evil for more, but you KNOW that good gives you a better reward down the line, it really saps the meaningfullness of the choice.

25. Bath or Showers: On a daily basis showers are way more practical.  I do like a nice bath now and then especially if my muscles are achy, but our tub isn't really deep enough to get comfortable.  Also I get bored in the bath and have to listen to music or something.  

26. Team Cap or Team Ironman: No, you move!  Which is weird because I otherwise find Iron Man a way more interesting character.

27. Fantasy or Sci-Fi: Lately I've been picking up more sci fi but I don't have a hard preference.

28. Fav Quotes: I could make a post at least this long with random quotes I like.  

29. Youtube or Netflix: They fill pretty different roles though I know YouTube is trying to get into the business of movies/tv and original content.  

30. Harry Potter or Percy Jackson: Harry Potter was a generational thing, Percy Jackson came out after I was too old for it.  

31. When I Feel Accomplished: When something works out, particularly if I get praise for something I've been trying very hard to do.  Lately I got praise for my coding style and was told that I'm personable and easy to work with, and both of those made me really happy because I've been putting particular effort into them.  

32. Star Wars or Star Trek: There's a special place in my heart for the original SW trilogy but there's much more of the Star Trek verse that I'm into.  

33. Paperback Books or Hardback: I usually buy paperbacks because they're cheaper and easier to carry around, but really beautiful hardbacks are cool as art objects, and more durable.

34. A world without literature or music: Would probably mean some fundamental change in the psychology of humans.  Even dictatorships tend to have state-produced art to use to control the people.  I don't think it's sustainable to have humans and not have some of them trying to make art.  

35. Who was the last person to make me laugh: My cat being cute.  Are you gonna tell him he's not a person?

36. Sour or Sweet Candy:  Sweet, I've never gotten the point of sour candies.

37. Believe in aliens?: There is probably some form of life somewhere but I have no reason to believe it's interacted with or been exposed to us.

38. Dawn or Dusk: Probably dawn, but I see a lot more of dusk.

39. Piercings or Tattoos:  I see more people with a lot of tattoos that I think look good, than people with a lot of piercings that I think look good, but that is my personal aesthetics and obviously nobody made that choice to appeal to me.  I have pierced ears and want to get a (particular) tattoo on either my wrist or ankle someday but it keeps getting pushed down the priority list.

40. Girls? Hot?: Is this a choice or a song reference or ...?

41. Snow or Fog: I have a thing about snow because snow shut my city down repeatedly over the winter to a downright embarrassing extent and it probably accelerated the wear on my car.  In a city with decent infrastructure I'd dig snow.  Fog is pretty until you have to drive in it.

42. Sleep facing the wall or room: I share a bed so I always sleep facing the outside of the bed, I don't care which side I'm on.

43. TRC of AFTG: All Google tells me is this is some series I've never heard of

44. Horror or Drama: In terms of movie classifications, drama.  But again it's much broader.

45. Orcarina of Time or Majora’s Mask: I haven't played either, the only Nintendo products I ever had were DSes

46. Living in nature or city: I think about this a lot, nature appeals to me but I can't actually handle living in a remote area.  

47. Any addictions: TBH this is a weird question to put on a lighthearted quiz, like it's written only expecting caffeine and "lol this fandom pairing" answers but it's actually very personal information?  

48. Languages:  English natively.  Still pretty good at Japanese though I'm a bit shy about actually using it any more.  I can passively understand some Mandarin but I don't tend to speak it myself because I probably couldn't keep up with a conversation.  (Though I feel like a donk because people speak Mandarin around me a lot and I feel like they should know I understand like 60% of their conversation?)  French and Latin didn't really stick at all.  I can discuss who's making the coffee/tea in Korean and I'm trying to learn more, it's a goal of mine to get in a real class when I'm out of grad school.

49. What music do I listen to: I draw from a bunch of different genres, the core ones are probably indie rock, k-pop, and electronic. Then I tend to be picky about which artists I actually like.  Since I got a streaming account I've been enjoying trying out a lot of new stuff.

50. Fav mythical creature: uh do mindflayers count?

51. Safe zone: My apartment I guess?  That's where I can change into sweatpants and not feel self-conscious so let's go with that.

52. First fandom: I think it was Utena.  That was definitely the first one I was really into and old enough for the internet for.

53. Cartoons or Adult Shows: No matter how you define cartoons there's way more "adult shows" than that, unless maybe you mean "adult" shows, in which case this question gets even odder.

54. Current music: Dishwasher Noises by My Old Tiny Dishwasher.  It's an ambient classic AND gets most of the dishes mostly clean.

55. Favorite starter?: I'd better go with the one in my car so it doesn't get offended and act up.  (Litten though.)

56.  What would your witch’s familiar be? Maybe my cat, or maybe a floating land octopus.  Or a hawk.  But that might eat other people's familiars.  

[rilenerocks]

I’ve been thinking along several seemingly disparate pathways the past couple of days. I’ve always been like that. The other day, I met a friend to help her sort through a harsh diagnosis her partner had recently received. After a lifetime of dealing with medical issues, starting with my mom’s lifetime health problems which frightened me when I was just a little girl, to the ones that appeared throughout the decades in other family and friends, and eventually the five year cancer trip with Michael, I’ve gotten pretty good at wading into the morass of illness. My mom always said, “I’m sorry you were exposed to all my physical troubles, but look how smart you got?” Thanks, mom.

This friend of mine I met with is a fellow swimmer. Perversely, we met outside our empty pool where we’d swim next to each other for years while swapping life stories. Outside of the summer months, we’d rarely get together. Up until last Tuesday, aside from our summer swimming, we’d had lunch together exactly twice in three years. She is an artist and photographer. I’ve purchased a few of her pieces which are unique and especially marvelous because she repurposes a lot of throwaway stuff that would otherwise be landfilled. Last year she came to my house to take pictures of me and my yard, which were to be featured in a show about women and their gardens. That show was cancelled because of the virus quarantine. Maybe someday? Who knows?

Anyway, what frequently  comes up in our conversations is how I always go off on tangents in what appear to be significant digressions from the topic at hand. But in my circuitous way,  I always wind up back on the subject. That’s what this blog is going to be like on this mild, sunny day, as I sit in my backyard with my feet kicking away in my kiddie pool. I’m watching butterflies feed while looking at and listening to birds. I’m learning a lot out here. I’m trying not to worry about Pumpkin, the female cardinal I foolishly attached myself to, despite knowing that’s a bad move with any wild animal. I haven’t seen her in two days. Carmine, her male partner has been omnipresent. And I believe I spotted one of their babies at my bird feeder yesterday, identified by a splotch of that beautiful cream color of its mom.

I can’t hear a damn thing out here except for the birds. My headphones are turned up loud. I’m in my own universe with just the natural world, music, and the always palpable sense of Michael that emanates from this space. Sometimes I catch myself staring at what I can only describe as hologram of him, weeding away in his incredibly meticulous vegetable beds. I can actually see the tendons moving in his legs which were pretty scrawny compared to his muscled upper body. It kind of reminds me of what popped out of R2D2 when Obi-Wan Kenobi retrieved Princess Leia’s message in the first Star Wars film.

The other morning, I was hurrying through kitchen chores when my son showed up in the dining room. He’s staying with me for awhile he works on a postdoc at our local university. I was chattering away at him when he looked at me through bleary eyes and asked, “ what’s up with this intense energy level so early in the day?” Despite my 70th birthday being my next, I still have almost the same high energy that I did when I was young. Apparently that’s  hardwired into me. Sometimes I think it’s dissipated over time, but only on a relative scale, I move at a faster pace than most of my family of origin. My mom, despite her ailments, was clearly the progenitor for this trait. My dad spent his time off work lolling on the couch. Everyone in my immediate family also slept more than me. The same was true for the family Michael and I made together. I was always the first one awake, back in the days we were still living as a unit. In addition to the excess energy and the need for less sleep, I have an essentially sunny disposition. I can be sad, go to dark interior places and certainly recognize them, but in me, they don’t last long. After a sad day, I’m always surprised to feel my humor and energy bubble up from somewhere in me. Even in the worst of times, that’s been consistent. Once, a very long time ago, my brother, eight years older than me, told me that the first time he felt real joy was when I was born. I marveled at that statement. My parents also told me that I was such an easy, good baby that they were worried about me. I fell asleep easily with no complaints, which made them put a mirror under my nose to make sure I was still alive. I wasn’t a fussy eater and wasn’t ever colicky. I burbled happily through my days, primarily content and effortlessly pleased.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not that sweet saccharine type that you might want to punch in the face. I’m just relentlessly not difficult on a daily basis. Michael always said I was a cheap date, easily pleased and satisfied without a lot of effort. In other words, I’m not high maintenance. There’s just a lightness in me, sometimes despite all my efforts to the contrary. I’d like a maudlin wallow that lasted longer than an afternoon. My recovery time is so fast, I always feel like no one ever feels sorry enough for me. Maybe a more dramatic show of angst would get me more attention. Oh well. I think it’s mostly biology that’s running my show, modified by life and experience, but fundamentally locked in. I was twenty when I moved in with Michael and he often told me during our 45 years, that I was the singularly most unchanged person he ever knew. I took that as a compliment. He didn’t mean that I hadn’t evolved during our life together, but rather that my fundamental self was consistent. Since his death, I find that taken together, these essential traits of mine are both beneficial and problematic. My behavior indicates to the outside world that I’ve adapted fairly well to losing my partner. I do a lot of different activities. My brain is still active and I’m perpetually curious. I can have conversations about virtually anything. But inside of me where my intangible substance lives, I feel like I’m just fabricating a life to occupy my time. After all, I’m still alive.  My instincts tell me I have to do something. But in my depths, I often think this is all filler, placeholders for what my real life should be, a real life which still feels like my old life with Michael. I don’t know if or what a person is supposed to be in this world. You hear all these quotidian lines – “she’s a born mother,” “he’s a born grandfather,” all these “born” descriptors which seem to define some essential bent that we’re all expected to have. I suppose if that’s true, I’m a born life partner. Except I’m still here being that while my partner is gone. I don’t want another one. I can’t find a shred of evidence in me that would indicate I want to team up with anyone else. So basically, I’m using my essential traits and making up the current me on a daily basis. I don’t much like this. I simply don’t see another choice.

I guess that focusing on transience is the best coping mechanism I can employ to deal with this piece of time. Like the 18th century Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch, whose still lifes show the influence of the Vanitas movement, which display the inevitability of death and the loss of earthly things, I know that ultimately everything and everyone will disappear, if not completely, then certainly by changing form at the very least. Her painting above shows flowers reaching the end of their prime. I can relate to that.

  I’ve now lived in my town for almost 52 years. First I was a student with my life centered mostly around campus. After a time, I moved into the community at large. The places I spent time in over these decades, vary in terms of their continued consistent  physical presence, a modified presence or their complete disappearance. I rarely go through the university campus any more.

But the other day, I drove through the heart of what is known as Campustown, very near the main quadrangle where I attended classes in beautiful old buildings, many of which were constructed in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Of course there have been many renovations and updates to those over the years. They are still recognizable. But Campustown is completely changed. High rise buildings dominate the landscape, mostly businesses on the first floors and apartments above. Green space is noticeably absent. Many of the places I frequented have vanished. I have vivid memories of them.

The Record Service where both Michael and I worked, he for 27 years, had several locations in the heart of that place. No trace of it exists. The corner drugstore which sold sundries and the like, but also had a few booths and a kitchen where for a modest price, you could get a hot roast beef or turkey sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes. My friend Fern and I went there a lot. There was the Spudnuts doughnut shop and Follett’s bookstore. The Co-Ed movie theater and McBride’s plus the Art Mart which now exists in a new location far from campus.

There was Mabel’s, the music venue on the second floor of a building on the main drag, with an impossibly steep staircase even when my knees were good. The Deluxe, home of the best fish sandwich I’ve ever eaten. The Cellar, a basement “head” shop, Thimble and Threads, an alternative clothing store, The Leather Shop and Marrakech Clothing Imports. The Campus Florist, The Art Coop and the camera store way before digital cameras existed. Bailey and Himes sporting goods store. Chin’s restaurant and The Brown Jug. All these places and more exist in my mind. I can feel myself in them, feel what I’m doing as I jiggle my favorite pinball machine, Drop-a-Card, a little tipsy from beer which I never liked. I see my view of the stage from the good tables at Mabel’s where you could listen without getting too squished and sweaty and still get up to dance if you were so inclined. I can see my friends and remember conversations there. And of course there is Michael with me. As I drove down that strange but familiar street, I realize that when I’m gone, along with others in my peer group, all that energy from that time will spiral out into the universe somewhere, vanished from sight but yet alive in a context I can’t fathom. I believe that science will one day bear out my feelings about those mystical ideas.

A year or so ago, I had the presence of mind to drive around town to take pictures of every place I lived in before Michael and I bought the house I still currently occupy. Two places were demolished but I found photos of one of them. The other I hope to describe before that memory disappears. In my head, I can still walk through all those houses, turning into the kitchens, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. I can feel the  doorknobs in my hands. I navigate the past, parallel to the present. So much has happened in my life already. With the grinding repetitive routine that the coronavirus has required of me, these filler assignments that I concoct to occupy the present vacant time, aren’t as much fun as what’s already behind me, or next to me, or floating around somewhere in these difficult-to-comprehend wavelengths that are the stuff of physics and string theory and other befuddling concepts. I’ll take these scientists at their word while wishing for concepts easier for me to understand.

The other day, my son told me that my daughter didn’t want to sell our house after I die. Actually, she’d already told me that. He doesn’t really want to sell it either. I think I get it. Our home is like their ancestral shrine. People tend to move a lot in this country. When I came here in 1968 I was a 17 year old college freshman. Ten years later, after living with Michael and bumping around for six years, we bought this house, never dreaming we’d live here forever. But that’s how things worked out. I am anchored here, where so much of my adult life happened. My kids were conceived here and stayed until they went off to college. But they came back and brought their friends. We hosted 35 Thanksgiving dinners here with a wide assortment of family and stragglers. People who needed a place to stay intermittently shared our space. My mother lived here in a room that still smells like her. Michael and I did every conceivable activity that passes between friends and lovers here, up to and including his death. I am never uncomfortable or unhappy with our memories in this space. I wondered if I would be but instead it’s my gift and comfort to be here. If I’m lucky, I’d like to die in this place, just like Michael, although no one can predict what awaits us. If I could choose it, though, this is where I’d be.

When we moved in here, there was major reclamation to be done on this structure built in 1893. Daunting work and still it never ends. But the house emitted these wonderful feelings immediately, and we often wondered what good things must’ve happened that lingered in the walls and drifted out, enveloping us in the warmth of home. I imagine we’ve added to that deep resonance of succor which is palpable to me. I’m not surprised that my kids intuitively understand that their history still resides here. Not  something they’re likely to quickly cast aside once I’m gone, to hopefully commingle with whatever is Michael, who is out there afloat, still pulling on me daily, while I make up my current daily existence. All these changes I’ve experienced, internally and externally. My, my. I muddle along, creating a space around me that seems to pass for a full life. Maybe filler is too negative a connotation for what I’m doing now. Some days are better than others. I am confident that I still have value in this world and my intellect is fully operative which helps immeasurably. But the draw of my partner still dominates me after three years and change. If that alters, maybe I’ll redefine my current perceptions of this iteration of me.

Filler I’ve been thinking along several seemingly disparate pathways the past couple of days. I’ve always been like that.

[wavelengthintl]

Top Tracks Of 2017

10. Rico Nasty - Glo Bottles

The story of DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) rapper Rico Nasty is pretty remarkable. She released her first mixtape when she was 16 and still in high school. At some point during her senior year she became pregnant, however the baby’s father, who she describes as her best friend, died before he even knew he was going to have a child. She sunk into a depression, barely graduated, and was a single mom at the age of 18. After her child was 10 months old she started rapping again, and grinded from obscurity to the soundtrack of the Fate Of The Furious, the soundtrack of HBO’s Insecure, and this year’s top 40 rap albums list on Rolling Stone Magazine. This was all done without the support of a major label. When she talks about things like now having a “new whip every day” you genuinely feel happy for her as a person.

9. Pabllo Vittar - K.O.

Pabllo Vittar is an openly gay Brazilian drag queen who is now officially the most followed drag queen on Instagram, surpassing even RuPaul. She was bullied in school as a teen for her feminine voice and demeanour, then began doing drag at the age of 18. In 2014 she was discovered via YouTube and made her first television appearance. Her fame began to skyrocket the following year after releasing “Open Bar,” a Portuguese version of Major Lazer’s “Lean-On.” This year Major Lazer compounded her notoriety even further by featuring her in their original production “Sua Cara.” She was also featured on Charlie XCX's Pop 2 album, had the most-in-demand song of Brazil’s carnival, signed an official deal with Coca Cola Brazil, and cracked 100 million plays on both of her single releases. Her heavy usage of LBGTQ-affirming imagery and her vocal criticism of some of the countries conservative figures have made her a rallying point for Brazil's LBGTQ population, as well as those disillusioned with the encroaching conservative political establishment.

8. Lil Pump - Flex Like Ouu

Seventeen-year-old Florida Rapper Lil Pump is a lot like a Marvel movie. If you go into a Marvel movie looking for something that’s a dead-ringer to the comics you’re going to be disappointed. You have to just interpret each movie as its own thing, independent from the comics. Similarly, when you approach the music of Lil Pump you have to forget about rap music. Forget about Kendrick, forget about Big L and all those other old-head icons, and just interpret this music as existing inside a vacuum. When you do that it becomes more apparent why the sound of artists like Pump and Smokepurpp have become so infectious. A lot of times when artists try to add energy to a track they do so by being obnoxious, with brostep being perhaps the most egregious example of this. These artists, on the other hand, figured out how to create incredibly hype tracks by taking the stripped-down nature of trap music and adding this highly repetitive lyrical delivery. It’s a formula that’s really simple and efficient, and also easy for other Soundcloud rappers to replicate. I see a lot of similarities between the music of Lil Pump and genres like grime and kuduro. Even though it’s built off of hip-hop it’s essentially its own thing. The reason why old-heads are angry is because this isn’t happening in East London or Angola, it’s happening on American soil. Old-heads are shook at the prospect of someone in their own backyard gaining notoriety by yelling the same three words over and over while being associated with rap. Meanwhile the rest of the world is like hey welcome to the club we had this like 15 years ago.

7. Ski Mask The Slump God - Catch Me Outside

According to Pigeons & Planes, 21-year-old Ski Mask The Slump God is one of the most “inventive and compelling” figures to emerge from the rising school of Florida rappers, and for good reason. If anyone can reconcile the growing gap between old heads and fans of new-school rap it’s him. According to Ski Mask himself he’s lyrical, but not lyrical. In other words he has the intricately crafted wordplay that old heads value, but he delivers it with the based “I don’t really care what I’m saying” aspect of the new school. The music video itself is a testament to his ability to unite both worlds. His decision to rap over the 1999 Missy Elliott and Timbaland beat for “She’s A Bitch” earned praise from Missy Elliott herself. Ski Mask was also praised by Isaiah Rashad, who said he was upset at “how tight this nigga Slump God is.” On the other hand, the video appears on the channel of video producer Cole Bennett, one of the central hubs for the emerging new wave of rap. Two of Ski Mask’s recent tracks, “My Mind” and “Achoo!” have veered off into more experimental territory, signalling that this artists definitely harbours surprises that remain to be seen in the new year.

6. Shy Luv - Lungs

One time on a 20+ minute drive home I listened to this song on repeat the entire way, then when I pulled up to my house I sat in the car and listened to it like four times, then I went inside and listened to it again. Anytime a song provokes that reaction it's a good indication that it should probably be on some year end list.

5. Lorde - Perfect Places

Pretty much everyone who listens to music in this solar system was in unanimous agreement that Lorde’s sophomore release "Melodrama" is a masterpiece. This is evidenced by the grammy nomination for Album of the Year, numerous top 10 finishes in “best albums of 2017” lists, and Rolling Stone Magazine comparing her to Kate Bush. For a major pop release it has a tremendous level of depth and intellectualism that far surpasses Lorde’s age of 21.  A problem that some major pop artists face is switching to some trendy micro-genre then sounding unnatural, like the time Justin Bieber threatened to release a dubstep track, the first time Katy Perry did trap, or Lady Gaga going Americana to tap into the normie market. On Melodrama every track sounds like Lorde, and being able to firmly establish such a dynamic musical identity at that young of an age is also a testament to her power level. This could legitimately be the rise of the next Kate Bush.

4. Tei Shi - Keep Running

In 2015 I listed Argentinian-Canadian singer Tei-Shi’s song “Bassically” as my top song of the year. That track was one of the main reasons why pop music is still one of my most listened-to genres. It represented this whole movement that year of pop music’s indie side coming into the foreground, or of pop music with a high degree of artistic value suddenly becoming visible. At the time, I described it as pop music coming into its own. The same could be said of Tei Shi now, except this time she has an entire debut album “Crawl Space” to back it up. Her music continues to showcase the depth that pop music on the whole can have, and why it’s no longer the anathema of the underground, but an extension of it.

3. Charlotte Day Wilson - Work

Nylon Magazine called 24-year-old Canadian singer Charlotte Day Wilson “the next best thing out of Toronto.” The Star described her essence as “subdued soul, rich vocal texture and instrumental acuity.” According to Now Toronto she’s become a queer icon in the city, and she hopes to create space for women in music to flourish. I think one of my favourite memories from last year was wandering the streets of Budapest listening to this song on repeat.

2. Austra - I Love You More Than You Love Yourself

This was definitely a Facebook newsfeed discovery. Austra is a four-piece band from Toronto fronted by Katie Stelmanis. This song is from the group’s album “Future Politics,” and according to the album’s page on Domino Records it’s a “collection of urgent, but disciplined anthems for dancefloor and headphones, [and] asks each of us to remember that apocalypse is not an inevitability, but the product of human decision-making.” Although the write-up goes on to describe the album in ways that make it seem like a manifesto, I definitely heard “Utopia,” the album’s other main single, playing in Earl’s once. It will probably end up on some Netflix show at some point. This is the power of pop music, it can make critical statements but still be accessible at the same time.

1. Lil Uzi Vert - XO Tour Llif3

Last year, for the first time in history, hip-hop dethroned rock as the most consumed genre in the U.S., and I think it’s largely because of artists like Uzi Vert.

I held off on writing this one for a while because I wanted to actually do research to find out why emo rap in particular seems to have become the soundtrack of the contemporary urban youth. Thankfully I didn’t have to search too far, because this Pitchfork article (link below) perfectly summarizes it.

Unlike gangster rappers and some earlier trap rappers, emo rap has an aesthetic that doesn’t only speak to one demographic, but rather to the struggles that youth often face on the whole. Whereas rap music previously presented black communities as bastions of lawlessness governed by hyper masculinity and street bravado, lines like “Please Xanny make it go away” transcend racial boundaries and redefine the notion of how black men should present themselves in the performance of hip-hop.

In terms of the actual construction of the music itself, I think it’s worth noting that the spacey, atmospheric nature of Uzi Vert’s beats basically came from a subculture on Soundcloud that couldn’t find anything to relate to in their immediate environment, so they turned to the internet. This is evidenced by Uzi Vert citing Marilyn Manson as one of his biggest influences.

These beats, combined with the subject matter, combined with the anime-inspired outfits, mean that emo hip-hop right now is speaking to the largest population segment out of any genre. In 2018 old heads are going to keep being angry at music like this, but while they’re 45-years-old complaining in a basement somewhere, listening to Naughty By Nature, drinking AGD and playing Goldeneye 64, the rest of the world is experiencing rappers like Uzi Vert taking hip-hop to completely new heights.

https://pitchfork.com/…/1481-to-be-young-angsty-and-black-…/

[lsr-psychosphere]

This Means War

by Niharika Rawat Pink Freud, October 2017

As someone who runs a popular culture/psychology-hybrid blog, hilariously called Pink Freud, you can assume that I know something about both. As it happens, I indeed do (and I don’t just research a topic on Google one hour before submitting it. Nope, never happens. Not at all) and I engage in frequent discussions about it. Even when I am not, I am one of those people who will scroll to the very top of a Tumblr thread or Facebook comment feed to see what everyone has to say (or scream).

Being as I am a connoisseur of popular culture, I often follow developments in certain fandoms closely, and see how both the general public and the fans react to it. And if you are even a little aware about fandoms, you know exactly where this is going.

My very first article had been about how we fans defend our favourites to death, even when there is something problematic with them. That is natural. In the most commonsensical and psychological terms, we get attached to the things we like, and we see them as representing ourselves. So of course, we will defend them. But sometimes, we maintain this positive bias by bringing down other fandoms. And by bringing down I mean a WWE Friday Night Royal Smackdown with all that cage and ladder shit thrown it.

Yep, things get ugly.

Korean music, or K-Pop as it is called, still continues to be somewhat niche, despite the fact that its global popularity has changed the game for its country of origin and the artists it produces. Korean fans are known for their loyalty and involvement, seen in their customized fandom names, official sites, specialized merchandize and the flurry of voting-based awards that their stans win. But anyone who knows anything more than the horse dance to Gangnam Style also knows that in the small by-lanes of Tumblr threads and Korean news sources, all hell breaks lose, and things often get personal.

The YG Entertainment girl group 2NE1 broke up in 2016 after turbulent times that enveloped all members in problems and scandals. Just a few months before this disbandment, another four member girl group had debuted under the YG banner, noticeably similar in music and style to 2NE1. You can guess what happened. For the first half of 2017, the internet was full of loyal ‘blackjacks’ (2NE1 supporters) criticizing this new group Blackpink for either copying their girls, or for not being enough like them, and saying that the Blackpink girls had it easy as compared to 2NE1, which had debuted at a time Korean music was limited to Asia and in fact had a strong role in bringing it to the global stage. Many felt that the Blackpink girls were walking the easy path toiled by their elder sisters.

(pictured: Blackpink above, and 2NE1 below)

Blackpink fans retaliated in kind, and more with facts than accusations. A musical group often has little to no control over their music and concepts, and if there are similarities, it had more to do with YG using a tried-and-tested formula to gain some quick profit. But that has not stopped the comparisons, insults, and skirmishes that occasionally break out over the internet.

If all this Korean talk is perhaps too niche for you, there is a classic Western debate that you can easily indulge in – Marvel vs. DC. The establishment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe has brought this war into the forefront, as now even non-comic book readers can have an input. The fact that Marvel has released a string of smash hits while DC movies struggle between blockbuster status and critical reviews does not help the fight either. Hence, the Marvel fandom uses its Rotten Tomatoes scorings and box office collections, while DC calls into its defence its almost equal rankings, the fact that the critical consensus did not mean that the general public did not like the movie, and the small detail that their worst movie won an Oscar, making it more than what Marvel has. (Seriously. Suicide Squad has an Oscar.) But redemptive goddess Wonder Woman has changed the scene, and Justice League may be the tipping point that evens the scales.

But does that stop the fandoms? Nooo. Just try checking out any new trailer for an upcoming DC or Marvel movie. You will always find comments and entire conversations comparing both companies using every possible scale devised by man (and woman). And then there will be the one person saying ‘Why can I not enjoy both?’

Even I ask the same question sometimes, random commenter. And the fact is, you can. In fact, most do. It is only when they see the other thing or listen to the other thing that they make a case for their own side. And if they give inputs without considering the other side, well, that input is worth zero. I really don’t know what makes people fight for their stans and fandoms, apart from the commonsense idea I said above. Even as a BTS fan, I am not a part of the ARMY that goes marching down everywhere to wreck havoc. I understand liking your own things, but to put your time and energy into hating someone else’s likes is a concept beyond me.

But then again, I do fight everyone who says 50 Shades is a good book, so maybe I’m not that much of a level-headed fangirl after all.