#but tbh that style fits the vibe of the second movie more than the first but alas

[pettyprocrastination]

sorry but I will never forget this peni parker concept art. what could have been. 

[romancing-lady-whistledown]

S6 overall thoughts

What I loved

- Lola. While no Skam-main will ever reach the levels of love and attachment I have to Lucas Lallemant, I think that especially concidering that Lola was literally introduced in the last scene of S5, her being my second favorite main of the show is quite an accomplishment and I think Flavie deserved alot of the honor for that. She needed to catch my attention right away, and she did.

- Eliott. Although I have a big complaint about how the later part of his storyline was concluded in this season which I’ll get back to, I still loved what I saw of him. With all his lovable traits and his flaws, to me he felt as well-rounded and lovable and interesting and relatable as I always found him. I loved seeing him get to direct, act in and eventually show his first ever movie, I loved that he got to talk about his illness again in the Luquette-clip, and I also loved how the video-store became a safe place for Lola to go when things weren’t going well with her family or with Maya.

- The Lecomte-sisters. Easily the best executed part of this season. Even as someone who hasn’t been the biggest fan of Daphne since S4 even I still felt their connection through the entire season and it was definitely my favorite love story in this show after Elu’s in S3, although an entirely different type of love.

- A lot of the clips. Although Skam France unfortunately struggle with solid narratives with satisfying endings, they are amazing at creating moments, and this season had a ton of clips and moments that I loved, still probably outweighing the number of clips I didn’t like so much.

- The acting. Skam France owes so much of their cast, they are really carrying the show.

- The cinematography. The blue and purple aesthetic was perfect for this season, and I also loved the red aesthetic of Eliott’s video store alot. I have never had a problem with Skam France’s cinamatic look, in fact that’s one part of their style that they really rock and that I really like even though it gives a totally different vibe from og Skam.

What I liked that could’ve been better

- Mayla’s storyline. The chemistry was there and I liked them, but I didn’t fall in love with them. I think it’s something in how their development was written. The romance was very much a side-plot in this season, which I’m not complaining about because I think it was fitting for Lola’s story, but a side-plot romance like that just didn’t need the Char-drama, especially after we already had Maya avoid Lola for a week. The development of the relationship just kinda lost me somewhere along the way so I unfortunately didn’t grow to love them the way I wish I did. 

- Eliott’s arc. While I’m happy with what I saw from Eliott, his arc doesn’t feel fully completed. The sad thing is it would’ve been so easy. If they just gave Eliott and Lola a longer conversation about the club incident and one POV clip for Eliott and Lucas to talk about the insecurities that were brought up, that would’ve made a world of difference for me. And concidering how short episode 9 was there was time for that, so it’s not like I’m bitter or anything.

- Most of the storylines tbh. Like I really found most of the storylines in this season interesting, I really wanted to see them play out and get to a satisfying conclusion. But because of the way they chose to use their time, so many of those storylines never lived up to their potential, and it’s frustrating.

What I didn’t like

- The ending - This isn’t really so much about the last clip which was cute and all, although I have some complaints about it (Why did Charles have more lines that Lucas? Why did they drag S5 down with a love triangle just for Alexia and Arthur to suddenly get back together in the finale? Why miss the opportunity of a Lucas/Jo interaction when you’ve basically been setting up what could be a really funny scene all season? Shouldn’t Lucas and Lola at least exchange a look after the fight they had? Shoudn’t Eliott at least send a look in the direction of Mayla after he pushed so hard for Lola to bring Maya to the premiere?). But my main problem is about how significant storylines were left without a satisfying conclusion. Yes, there was alot of stuff going on in this season but also there was some poor use of the time they had, by either wasting time on unnecessairy and undeveloped side-characters or making the episodes short for no good reason. A lot could be done with that time. The angst kept going all the way into episode 10 and that shouldn’t be the case when you have this much to wrap up and you wrote this as if it was the last season of the show. In S3 there was angst in episode 9 and a tiny bit at the start of episode 10 when Eliott had his depressive episode, but since they already had wrapped up all the other conflicts in episode 7 they could focus almost entirely on giving that storyline a fullfilling and satisfying conclusion. 

- The lack of communication - the truth is that alot of the issues brought up in this season would never be fully resolved in 10 weeks. Lola’s addiction-problems, Daphne’s eating disorder, Eliott’s insecurities. That won’t go away within the timespan of a season, all we can hope for is to leave them in a better spot where the future looks hopeful. But we can have conversations about these things, and while I’m glad we at least got confirmation that both Lola and Daphne are getting professional help, so many conversations about different issues and between different characters were missing for this season to wrap up in a truely satisfying way. 

- The unnecessairy side-characters and the side-plots that came with them makes their own point on my list of things I don’t like because when I see them all I can think is how they took time away from giving the other stories better conclusions. I’m talking about Tiff and Char. I can see what their roles in the story were, I can see what purpose they were supposed to serve. Tiff and her squad served as a contrast to Lamifex at the start of the season, but then she was also dragged through the rest of the season with a cyberbullying plot that had very little impact and this whole thing was dragged out until the very last episode. As for Char, she sure pushed Lola to admit her feelings to Maya but I don’t think we needed her for that and I think having Maya and Lola making up after Maya avoided Lola for a week only for her to immediately start dating someone and kinda start avoiding her again was a poor use of time, both in the Mayla storyline and in the season as a whole.

- Making the episodes in the second half of the season super-short while the conflicts kept piling up was...a choice. And certainly not one I agree with looking at how everything concluded.

The short version is: I enjoyed alot of it, it was definitely the most I’ve enjoyed watching a season of Skam France since S3 because the parts I loved I really loved, so I would rewatch S6 over S1, S2, S5 and most definitely S4 any day. But the last portion of the season left me highly unsatisfied, both as an ending to Season 6 and as an ending for the original generation of characters. Yes, I know the last sequence of S5 was supposed to be the goodbye to the original generation, but that doesn’t make the situation any better to me because that scene, while there was a type of beauty to it, was just as underwhelming and unsatisfying as a goodbye to those characters as this clip was, and this was the last time we’ll see them. It’s of course bitter because there is so much lost potential to explore in alot of the og characters and even a 5 minute clip for each couple/single character could’ve made a huge difference there, which makes it harder to let go of the characters than it would be if the ending was at least somewhat satisfying. But on top of that it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth that it shows a certain lack of respect for the attachment the audience as a whole (not just the most passionate fans like us but even the more casual viewers) have to the original characters. I don’t think they can ever satisfy everyone but this kinda just feels like a “Get over it and move on” kinda attitude and it definitely doesn’t make me feel any more enthusiastic about investing in their new characters and seasons. Because for me the strength in this show is in the characters, they’re what keeps me interested when the storytelling is weak which happens...quite a bit. 

[polyolefinprince]

What would you do for the next Pokémon region? What theme would the pseudo legendaries and legendaries be?

In terms of the actual region, I prefer fantasy lands to actual places (I'd rather explore Hyrule than NYC, you feel?) which also permits more diversity in location so there can be stuff like a desert area and a snowy area without it feeling forced. I'd also want caves to come back a bit. Places like the Ice Path in Johto allowed so much more exploration than locations like the Galar Mine which is just one path with an optional offshoot.

Honestly, I want a Breath of the Wild type of game where there is a lot more exploration and letting us approach the story how we want. Gyms would be hard to force in a more open-world game but in the past two generations they've been changing how gyms work so I think it's totally feasible to still incorporate that with badges acting as milestones to unlock stronger pokemon and areas. I still think having the region somewhat split up is a good idea, so maybe having different areas going further into the region, with three gyms per area, and you just have to beat one of them to go on but you're encouraged to beat all three so you're pokemon will on-par with the levels of the next region. This allows for a chance of a gym for each type which would give us 6 different levels of area, similar to Alola's four islands (I don't think I would want them to be islands though because the story requires more forest area than oceans). I think this works well because the first could be a classic Grass/Fire/Water trio, then maybe Electric/Ground/Flying as classic types to teach resistances, then Bug/Ghost/Poison to have a generally spooky vibe, then kick off the second half with the classic Fighting/Psychic/Dark trio, then Ice/Ground/Normal (partially because it's what is left and partially because by now you have typing figured out so a strong normal gym is a challenge) and the final one could be the stronger types with Dragon/Fairy/Steel.

In terms of the storyline, I love what Hoenn did with having two teams with contrasting views and depending on the game you chose you got to see different points of view. I want to try that again but have more nuanced arguments rather than Team Aqua and Magma's opinion on the size of the ocean. I think I'd want my two teams to be focused on Nature vs Society, where one team wants to exhaust the natural world's resources for industry and science while the other wants to push civilization back to make room for the return of forests and wild pokemon. This has definitely been done before so it isn't a new concept, but I think that it's something where arguing for the extremes can lead to disastrous consequences in either side. I'm talking Community Center vs Joja Mart but like to the max.

Playing off of that, Princess Mononoke is one of my two favorite movies and while I would love the forest spirit there to be the Nature legendary, I don't want it to be too similar to Xerneas. Instead, I think looking at the boar gods there is a good choice as they can show the wild strength of nature that I want. So the Nature legendary would be a Grass/Ground giant boar. Let's call it Boarture, even though that's not at all what it's name would be because that sounds too much like torture and I specifically want to stay away from making either of them evil, just dangerous. Still, Boarture works for now.

The Society legendary is harder. I don't want to minimize society to industry because that's harder to justify against nature. I still want industry to play a part, as well as scientific advancement but also history and art as important cultural cornerstones. There are a couple different type combos I like for this one, but my favorite is Fire/Steel, which isn't a type combo we've seen before and also pairs up human civilization really well with the myth of the first fire and cooking and shelter and stories which are all decidedly human traits and the steel incorporating technology and science. I think it would take on a more humanoid appearance while still being wisp-y, a body composed purely of a white fire fueled by ambition and hands of liquid steel that it shapes at will to demonstrate its creativity, while still being dangerous to embrace in entirety. Lets call it Muse.

It might be a lot, but I think I also want a separate legendary trio to accompany them both. With Boarture I think you should have to make a case to three disciples before you get to confront Boarture itself. Each of them composes an aspect of the natural world. I like the idea of them being bugs because there aren't enough strong bug types. One of them is Flying/Bug and it helps herald in storms, another is Rock/Bug and it presides over the desert, and the third is Water/Bug and it protects the rivers and streams throughout the region. For Muse's, I like the idea of them all being Fairies because fairy tales are a human creation, and each of them having to do with humanity and society. One would be Ghost/Fairy and presides ovrr stories and history, another would be Electric/Fairy and would be immersed in technology (like a non-tricky Rotom), and the third would be Psychic/Fairy and would deal with identity and the concept of the Self. I don't like the idea of Pokemon being version exclusive, as somebody who didn't have friends to play with growing up, so I think 3 would be plot relevant, but after the game is complete you can potentially go through a second quest to fight the second box legendary and with it in the party you could find the other 3.

Idk what I would do for pseudo legendaries tbh. I've always wanted a Fire/Grass forest fire pokemon so that would be there. I also want a Poison/Steel radioactive pokemon that would fit well with the industrial aspect of the games. I love the idea of a Water/Dark kraken-style pokemon but I don't know if it would fit in well with my idea of the region. A Grass/Fighting moose pokemon covered in bark? A Poison/Fairy witch pokemon with a special move where it throws a potion with different effects based on the type of Pokemon it throws it at? An Ouroboros pokemon that starts as just a snake trying to bite its tail but turning into a fearsome dragon?

Overall, I think it's ambitious. Making it so that the story is different depending on the version while still following the core story isn't too hard, they've done it before. On top of that, making it so you can fight between 6-18 gyms and not necessarily in order will allow incredible individuality to the games, making it feel like everybody can play their own game with a different story than their friend. It would also allow great replayability as people fight different gyms or challenges like a Nuzlocke but you can only fight one gym per area. Or fighting one gym per area and then going back with a fresh team to fight the next 6 and then a third team to be the final 6.

And then having a nature-team is a great segue into another Pokemon Rangers game which they could have done so well on the switch, with moving the controllers in a circle to catch pokemon.

The problem though is that the Pokemon Company is currently emphasizing quantity over quality. I legit don't know if we'll ever see another epic main pokemon game because they are so focused on getting smaller games that they know we'll buy just because it has pokemon in it. They are prioritizing profits over telling a good story with a good game right now, which is disappointing, but I think it's possible we are in the stage where pokemon as we knew it would have died off by now and the only reason it's still going is because there is still money to be made. This is unfortunate, but I understand that we can't have the pokemon we grew up with our whole lives.

[dorizardthewizard]

So I watched the Eurovision movie

Uh, I have a lot of thoughts because this is the closest we’re gonna get to the real thing this year ;^; First, the positives!

What they got right:

Overall, I like that it wasn’t really taking the piss out of the competition – whether you agree or not with how it was portrayed, the creators do have a lot of love for the show and that is reflected in how much it means to the characters. I think it was fitting to start with the kids watching and being inspired by ABBA’s win (I’m always up for showing people where the group’s fame started), and making it their life goal to perform in the contest. Just like Lars and Sigrit, many musicians in Europe grow up with Eurovision being an annual tradition and it’s their big dream to one day perform on that international stage, so yeah I think it decently showed how important ESC is here.

They got the overall vibe right too – most of the songs really felt like Eurovision songs (maybe a little dated but still), from the Viking-Europop opener to the Lordi-aesthetic one to whatever the hell Russia was doing. I don’t think Greece’s song was something they’d ever send though; it fits the character but not what the country typically sends. Then again, Estonia have sent an opera song in Italian and Romania sent yodel rap so actually, I take back that statement. They were missing a Balkan ballad though! Staging was on point – I think it was filmed at the Tel Aviv stage so that’s obviously a factor, but big angel wings and hamster wheels also bring a lot of familiarity :P No pianos being set on fire though, which, in a movie with so many on-stage disasters, is honestly surprising.

Of course there’s also the past contestant cameos, for that I’ll say one thing – needs more Verka. Maybe some contestants from earlier years would have been nice too, at least we did hear Céline Dion’s song in the song-along. Would also have been nice if the whole mashup was Eurovision songs, instead of throwing in some other ones just to make it more recognizable for non-Eurofans. Otherwise, the mashup was really seamless and sounded good.

Another thing the movie got right was European’s attitudes to Americans, not sure how I feel about it since the movie was made by Americans, but it’s self-aware and pretty funny :P There’s also the funny gag about countries not wanting to host because of how expensive it is, not sure why a guy working for the national broadcaster would care about that but looking at Iceland’s population size, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also an economist for the government or something.

What they got wrong:

Of course, there were some things they didn’t quite get right. First of all, did the UK win for it to be hosted in Scotland??? Unless Australia won, or some other country that didn’t want to host or something. They actually made a joke about UK getting zero points, but they said it’s because no one likes us, when in reality we just send the blandest songs :/

There were also a whole lot of technical inaccuracies like Sweden breaking the rule on number of people allowed on stage, big five countries taking part in the semi-final (come on, how can you not get that right? Maybe they were afraid Americans wouldn’t recognise half the flags? :P), the contestants were just sitting by themselves in some room like it’s The Voice or something, their delegations nowhere to be seen, and then there’s the total lack of security or planning around the competition, with Lars just running around doing whatever. The countries presenting their votes in the semi-final stood out as well, but since we didn’t get to see the final I can brush over it, just so we experience the voting somewhere in the movie. Wonder why they didn’t use past contestants for the points announcements? They also had the French one speaking in English but you know what, they remembered to make sure he was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower so I’ll let them off :P

One thing that did bother me was how hard the movie tried to make us think the Icelandic song was a failure, except the song wasn’t even bad so they had to resort to all the incidents on stage. They even had that complete silence after the hamster wheel incident, and there is NO WAY that would ever happen – even the null points songs get cheers! In fact, people would cheer harder, and I don’t think Graham Norton, or anyone for that matter, would be that surprised that people remembered the song and actually gave it points (oh yeah, great to see him in this!).

Okay, some of those inaccuracies were nitpicks, but they’re just fun to point out. I don’t think they quite nailed the portrayal though, but more on that later.

The movie itself:

Judging the rest of the film, the humour really didn’t do it for me- it was just kind of jarring that one half of the movie felt like your usual light-hearted music contest film that was fairly rooted in reality, then the next there’s a dismembered ghost of Demi Lovato and a guy getting stabbed by Elves??? I know it’s classic Will Ferrel random comedy but honestly, those parts could have been cut out of the movie just fine, it’s like half an hour too long anyway and you can tell by the way the humour drags. It can basically be summarised by the ending scene where Lars is yelling at the Americans and then just keeps going, and I know that’s the joke in that scene but they do this throughout the whole movie – something will happen and the characters will keep reacting back and forth and it’s honestly exhausting. That might just be me though, maybe I’d prefer more witty and self-aware humour in a Eurovision movie but I guess non-fans wouldn’t get half the jokes so they went for over-the-top ridiculousness ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for the characters, Sigrit was great; she’s a good mix between cute and weird. Lars is… annoying tbh, maybe I just don’t care for Will Ferrel's character type but when Alexander asks Lars what he can possibly offer Sigrit I was like “yeah Lars, what CAN you offer?”. Their relationship was cute though and his arc about caring too much about winning was decent, it does kind of resonate with Eurovision because yeah, lots of countries will revamp their songs to have English lyrics and the style is increasingly converging to Americanized radio-friendly pop music. I do wish they’d focused more on this conflict, rather than bringing in a love square (?) with Alexander and Mita.

Speaking of Alexander, I actually liked how they portrayed the Russian character; he wasn’t a villain, he was fun to watch and was genuinely happy to see Sigrit succeed. I did not expect them to go there with the whole “there are no gays in Russia” thing – I laughed but also actually felt for the guy, and his friendship with Mita was peak mlm/wlw solidarity, it was sweet.

The ending:

For me, this is where it goes American Hollywood style and kinda reminds me of Madonna’s speech about everyone being winners. Felt like I was watching Camp Rock for a second then (which is funny since Demi is in this movie) – all the other acts are fun songs but we’ll just change ours to a ballad so it must be more heartfelt and resonate with the audience, as if a good chunk of ESC songs aren’t ballads already!! To be fair, they do well in having it be a personal song about her hometown and adding in parts in Icelandic (although I’ve heard it’s so butchered you can’t understand what’s being said), it’s a sweet ode to one of the best parts of Eurovision – celebrating where you’re from and making your country proud.

Wish they’d focused more on that tbh, we really could have done without Lars speaking to the audience – that’s the more Hollywood moment for me and kind of reminds me of acts that try to connect with the audience like it’s a concert. Sorry but we don’t do that here :P Instead of the “music is feeling”-like message, it would have been nice if the movie was more directed towards celebrating why the contest is so big and important even decades after it began, and how it literally brings an entire continent together for one night. This would have been nice especially because of all the cynicism towards ESC and its dismissal as just a dumb, campy event with no quality music whatsoever.

Huh, I just remembered there are no live instruments at Eurovision so how everyone can hear the piano at the end is beyond me, also the instrumental kicks in despite the fact that that song has never been recorded in a studio, let alone able to be played out loud onstage. But I’ll just imagine that’s for us to see, the audience actually just heard her singing and nothing else. I don’t think it would have been that impressive, so Iceland probably won everyone’s hearts through memes instead :’D

Overall, I don’t think the movie was terribly offensive or anything, just some silly fun that missed out on the potential of better portraying the Eurovision spirit. I might eventually watch it again, but with skipping out half the comedy :P

[ckret2]

“You’re so vain” “Give em hell kid” And “I hope you die” I’d love to hear those explanations

Righto! Okay so recap for the people who might have missed it, this is about the radiosnake playlist I mentioned/linked a bit over a week ago, Serpentine & Demonswing. When I posted it I also added an “and if you wanna know why any songs are on the playlist you’re free to ask.” The playlist is a work in progress so some of my answers are gonna be “so here’s the explanation for why it was included but tbh I’m not 100% on keeping it.”

Important things to mention before getting into it: the playlist is build specifically off my headcanons from “Cold Day In Hell,” and so all of the songs act on the assumption that CDIH is “canon.” (tl;dr: they’re exes, because Alastor got scared of emotional intimacy, told Sir Pent he never actually liked him, and ran off after blowing up all his airships.) The first chunk of songs is from Sir Pent’s perspective, the second chunk is from Alastor’s, the third is from them both or about them both, and the last few songs are “I like the vibe but honestly am not sure this fits the playlist.”

Also, y’all are welcome to keep asking me about songs, because this is a lot of fun.

I’m absolutely sure that tumblr is going to delete this read more out of the post but I’m going to put one anyway, maybe it’ll let this one work just to be contrary. If it doesn’t, I apologize for the dash stretcher, that’s just how tumblr do.

So! Explanations:

You’re So Vain (Lyrics)

This one is on the Sir Pentious side, so, although it’s not directly/accurately about Alastor, it is about how Sir Pent sees him in light of their catastrophic breakup.

Verse 1 is less on the nose in its description of Alastor, but you get the impression of someone who is obsessed with how he comes across to other people, and who is far more interested in himself and the image he’s giving off than he is in any of the people he’s trying to impress. A great deal of Alastor’s personality is—or at the very least, comes off as—completely performative. As though to this day he’s still nothing but a radio host performing for a listening audience, even when he’s only talking to one person. The fact that he’s always wearing a fake smile and pointedly providing his own sound effects adds to that impression of a performer who never breaks character.

And the fact that the character in the song is still wholly self-absorbed even when he’s dancing with a partner gives a nice little glimpse into how Sir Pent’s retroactively reinterpreted his last evening with Alastor.

Verse 2 is the stanza that comes closest to completely accurately reflecting what went down between them. First, the alliance between them, the implicit promises that they the were going to conquer Hell and then Heaven as partners in crime—“Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair / And that you would never leave”—and then, the breakup—“But you gave away the things you loved / And one of them was me.” It’s the one line that acknowledges that the character in the song did, indeed, actually love the singer, and wasn’t just performing a role/playing at being in love.

It’s also a line that would ring false to Sir Pentious, because in the aftermath of CDIH, he genuinely doesn’t believe that Alastor ever loved him. He completely buys Alastor’s claim that he was just screwing around with Sir Pent’s emotions for his own entertainment. Words to the effect of “one of [the things you loved] was me” would never come out of Sir Pent’s mouth.

However. Of all the lines in all of the songs in Sir Pent’s portion of the playlist, that one line is the most accurate thing that could be said about Alastor, the blade that would stab into the core of who he is and the role that he played in this story. Because of his vanity—his selfishness, his pride, his obsession with his own independence, his fear of love, his fear of vulnerability, his fear of sharing his life with someone else, etc.—he didn’t just lose what he loved, he did very deliberately and intentionally give it away.

(I’ve always found that line to be the most interesting in the song, for the hint that this vain person did indeed truly feel for someone else, so I’m glad that line fits so well here.)

Verse 3 is just more “what Alastor is like as observed by Sir Pent,” except even more accurately than the first stanza. Constantly running around, constantly moving on from one brief source of entertainment to another (just stuff “threw his support behind the Happy Hotel” somewhere between “gambled on a horse race” and “watched an eclipse”), constantly socializing with dangerous people and people whom he’s going to hurt without caring in the slightest.

Okay so that’s the lyrics.

Making sure the aesthetics/styles/genres of the songs match the character they’re for is one of my high priorities on this fanmix—not to the extent that having the wrong style is an instant dealbreaker, but I’m going to be hesitant to include a song that doesn’t at all match the sound I’m going for. For Sir Pentious, I’m kind of running with two styles.

The first style is “sounds Victorian-ish enough to get a shrug and a nod from anybody who doesn’t actually know/care about Victorian-era music,” so that’s gonna be just about anything orchestral/symphonic that doesn’t clearly fall into a different genre, symphonic metal that sounds symphonic enough to satisfy me, instrumental covers of other songs (string quartets, piano, full orchestra...), things with harpsichords (LISTEN i know that harpsichords are more baroque but they’ve got the right Vibe, you know, they’ve got the Feeling), and things with organ—but like, it’s gotta sound like pipe organ (pipe organ—sounds like a church) and not like Hammond organ (Hammond organ—sounds like a baseball game). Also steampunk, except a lot of “steampunk” genre music sounds swingy/jazzy, so those songs get ruled out because that’s Alastor’s aesthetic. And also, like, actual classical music, but I’m not into a lot of actual classical music, so I don’t think any’s actually made it in yet, lmao.

The second style is based on what the creator herself said about Sir Pent’s music preferences: “Sir Pentious would listen to Blink-182. Pentious would literally listen to stuff like Linkin Park, Green Day, the emo stuff.” So I took "the emo stuff” as “oh okay cool so the stuff I listened to at 15 got it” and ran wild with that. I’ve been most heavily drawing from My Chemical Romance, Panic! At The Disco, and Mindless Self Indulgence to represent that half of Sir Pent’s preferences. (MSI because I feel like that fits an in-your-face and morally jaded villain, P!ATD because their newer stuff fits his flamboyance and exuberance and egotism, and MCR because... because I know them best.) I haven’t yet made much time to carefully comb the discographies of the other bands listed or look into other more traditional emo-associated acts.

Carly Simon’s original “You’re So Vain” matches neither of these styles.

I combed through about 60 different versions of “You’re So Vain” on Spotify looking for ones that meet one of these aesthetics. Like 90% of them were, I’m pretty sure, just various singers adding their vocals directly over a karaoke version of Carly Simon’s original.

In the end, the only one that came close was Marilyn Manson’s cover. He’s a bit outside of the bounds I try to stick in for Sir Pent, but like, okay, he’s industrial metal, but in a particularly goth way, that’s close enough to emo. To my mind, “Sir Pent listens to emo” is like... Sir Pentious’s musical preferences are going to be, 1) counterculture, the kind of stuff that causes conservative Christian moms to go into moral panics, but also 2) mainstream counterculture, the kind of bands that produce huge hits & get featured in major blockbuster movies, but also also 3) slightly dated mainstream counterculture, i.e., at the end of the 2010s he’s listening to the bands that may still be popular but that peaked in the mid 2000s, in keeping with the way he’s trying to keep hip and modern but always seems a little bit behind.

So, in the 2010s, he’s listening to 2000s emo acts. In the 2000s, he was listening to the 1990s’ biggest metal acts (like Marilyn Manson) and possibly grunge acts (things like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins). In the 1990s, he was listening to the 1980s’ biggest post-punk and new wave acts (like The Cure, Joy Division/New Order, Depeche Mode). Always evolving his stylistic preferences, always trying to keep up, but always a little behind. So that’s how I justify putting Marilyn Manson in lmao.

Although that was the only version of “You’re So Vain” I thought fit well enough, I also found a version by Trash Pour 4, a version by Les Reed Orchestra, and a version by Giant Sand that were all very good. Trash Pour 4 is driving me crazy because I can’t quite figure out what genre they are, I just can’t place them—but they’ve got several other good covers that I’d like to take advantage of at some point.

I also found a song called “You’re So Vain (Christian Dior)” by The Energy Commission that’s not a cover of Carly Simon’s song, just a new song with the same name. I’m lowkey considering including on Alastor’s side of the playlist. It’d serve as a very sharp critique of how image obsessed Sir Pent is, there’s some snappy turns of phrase that seem like they’d appeal to Alastor’s sense of humor (my two favorites are “He went off the deep end ‘cause he’s so shallow” and “He’s got a timepiece on his wrist and it says ‘watch me’”), the fact that it’s a critique specifically of high class materialism fits with the fact that I headcanon Sir Pent as coming from British nobility while Alastor’s ancestry is both racially and socially mixed (including at least one close relative who was a slave, I’m thinking a grandparent but haven’t settled on my headcanons yet), and I love when there are parallels like that in playlists about the relationship between lovers/partners/rivals/siblings/any-combo-of-two-people.

The reason I haven’t added it yet is because, by the end of the song, it’s not just a critique of being a rich shallow image-obsessed douche, but specifically of how that culture ties in to exploitative capitalism that’s wrecking human lives and the world—which, in the context of the characters we’re talking about here, would translate into a criticism of Sir Pentious’s very-imperialist-sounding take-over-the-world villain ambitions. Which isn’t something I think Alastor cares about. He probably should, but like, he just doesn’t. He’s a villain himself. I’m sure he’s got his own morals and standards and hard limits but “take over the world” isn’t on his list of dealbreakers. What’s taking over the world include? Mass murder and subjugation? Yeah, he’s cool with that. So that’s why I’m still on the fence about adding it.

Give ‘Em Hell, Kid (Lyrics)

So remember how I said that My Chemical Romance is one of the bands I’ve drawn from most heavily so far in looking for emo Sir Pent songs? Yeah for about a day there were six different MCR songs sitting in Serpentine & Demonswing as I slowly whittled them down to the ones that I thought fit best. “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid” is one of the last three, and actually one that I’m constantly on the verge of cutting.

Lyrically, it’s an Alastor song. There’s mentions of the singer having come from New Orleans (listen... i am a sucker for songs that mention New Orleans, it automatically earns five points on the imaginary “is this an Alastor song?” rubric in my head). The singer is singing about a love interest who’s gone, and he’s making no moves to pursue/reclaim the love interest, wishing them well (“So go on, live your life”), but he’s a wreck and a lesser person without them (“If you were here, I'd never have a fear,” “Well I'm a total wreck and almost every day”), and it’s just getting worse with time, not better (“But I miss you more than I did yesterday”).

The line “Some might say we are made from the sharpest things you say” although directed toward “you,” i.e. the love interest, i.e. Sir Pentious, in my head actually reflects more on the things Alastor said to Sir Pentious: the cruel things he said to Pent—that he’s weak, ineffective, behind the times, a has-been, never going to conquer hell—ended up a self-fulfilling prophecy, because that’s exactly what Alastor’s rampage made happen. Today, as he is now, Sir Pentious is made from the sharpest things Alastor said.

“Your dreams and your hopeless hair” makes me think of Sir Pent’s wild efforts to conquer hell (and, of course, his ridiculous cobra hood), and “We never wanted it to be this way for all our lives” is a perfect expression of Alastor’s regrets/remorse over what his actions have done to both of their lives, but especially to Sir Pent’s life.

And all the references to violence—murder scenes, firing squads, sharpest things—fit with the fact that both of them chose to live lives soaked in blood.

So it’s a perfect Alastor song. The only problem is, it’s an MCR song, which is sooo far outside of my acceptable genres for him. (I’m not gonna get into Alastor’s genres now bc there are better songs to do that on, just know emo ain’t it.) And not only is it outside of his acceptable genres, it’s in the OTHER character’s acceptable genres, which is very messy. I can vibe with “lovers’ songs borrowing from each other’s aesthetic” a LITTLE bit when it’s used to represent, like, emotional synchronicity or the like (ex: both “Roustabout” and Vernian Process’s “Maple Leaf Rag” are on my “Alastor+Sir Pent style fusion songs” list). But MCR is a big departure from Alastor’s acceptable styles.

Plus, the playlist already has two MCR songs, and do I really need three songs from the same band? Unless there’s a really good reason, I try to avoid having repeats from the same band on one playlist—I feel like a good well-rounded fanmix oughta have a diversity of sources. (With “a really good reason” being something like “I’ve got the playlist divided into five sections detailing five phases of the character’s life and each section is introduced with a different track from the same band” or “I’ve got an instrumental version of the song to kick off the playlist to serve as ‘foreshadowing’ for when the version with lyrics shows up at the most dramatic moment” or something like that.)

If I was going to, like, make it a thing, I could. Justify it like “there’s one MCR song that represents them when they’re together, one MCR song from Sir Pent’s perspective, and one MCR song from Alastor’s perspective, like a little triangle,” but like... if I was going to do that I feel like I’d want to do it with a style that’s either representative of both of them or else independent of both of them, and MCR is so heavily a Sir Pent sound. Basically, having three songs from one band would be okay if it was a band that vibes with the overall tone I’m shooting for in the playlist—but it’s not. So I’m very torn on “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid.”

“El Tango De Roxanne” + “Overture” + “I Hope You Die”

Okay before I can talk about “I Hope You Die” by itself, I kind of have to explain its exact position in the playlist and its relationship with the other two songs I just listed.

While MOST of the playlist is chunked up into the four sections I mentioned earlier (Sir Pent, Alastor, both, undecided), within those sections the songs aren’t really in any particular order. The one exception is the very first three songs on the playlist/the very first three songs in Sir Pent’s section.

These three songs, presented in that order, all as Sir Pent songs, serve as Sir “in war, the side remembered is the side with the most style” Pentious the Super Villain making his big entrance like:

“El Tango De Roxanne” starts slow/quiet, and then (with a couple of brief dips) it gradually builds in volume and pain and intensity, getting faster and more emphatic, switching from mournful longing to nearly-angry anguish, until it ends with a pained scream, steampunkish percussion, howling background singers, and a wailing violin.

And then it pauses, for just a moment.

And then “Overture” hammers you with the most dramatic opening chord you will ever hear on an organ in your life, perfectly matching the energy at the end of “El Tango De Roxanne” and maintaining that level of energy throughout the song.

And then it stops so quickly it’s like someone gasped, holding its breath for a split second—and then some dude yells “You must die! I alone am best!” and the guitars kick in for “I Hope You Die,” leading into a depiction of the most intense, vitriolic, disgusting sort of loathing imaginable.

The build-up from “El Tango De Roxanne” and “Overture” really revs up “I Hope You Die,” the intensity of the organ in “Overture” highlights the intensity of the guitar in “I Hope You Die,” and all together it hypes up what could have been just a dark humor song about hating someone into something that sounds like a very genuine demonstration of hatred.

And taken all together, it makes for a fantastic intro for Sir Pent.

It also serves as a perfect intro to the current state of affairs between him and Alastor—sort of expressing his personal emotional journey on the morning Alastor betrayed him, as his reaction transforms over the course of three songs from grief/despair to fathomless fury.

There’s more I could say individually about “El Tango De Roxanne” and “Overture,” but I won’t, because it’s “I Hope You Die” time.

“I Hope You Die” (Lyrics - warning for a whole stanza dedicated to hoping someone gets raped in prison)

A small handful of the songs in my Hazbin playlists were discovered in and added from existing Hazbin character playlists I found on Spotify before I started making my own. “I Hope You Die” was one of them, found here. Which is why it was added even though it doesn’t fit my strict genre standards, it won me over before I narrowed down the styles I’m working with lmao.

(I feel like “El Tango De Roxanne” was one of those too, but I can’t now find a Spotify playlist containing it that added it before I did. Where did I grab it from? It’s not something I would’ve looked up on my own, something must have inspired me. IDK what though. None of the other songs mentioned in this post were found on other playlists.)

So this song is, obviously, just about how much some dude hates somebody else and wants extremely horrible things to happen to them. It’s sorta... *eyes lyrics uneasily* ... sorta tasteless; but, tasteless in a way that I feel like reflects back on the character singing the song. The feeling I come away from after finishing the song isn’t “the band wants you to think the person they’re singing about deserves this to happen to them,” because it doesn’t even give a reason why the singer hopes this person suffers; but rather, “the band wants you to think that this is the kind of hatred that the character/persona the singer is portraying is capable of, this is the kind of vile stuff that character wants to see done to their enemies, this is representative of the depths of that character’s rage.” Which is why I’m like “yeah... okay, sure, that fits” even though I’m real iffy about the last couple stanzas.

Because for a character who’s in Hell surrounded by people who have stomped on the last dredges of their civility and decency, and a character who’s patterned after a super villain (and, because the series creator dropped the idea that there are heroes/villains in the living world, the only super villain in this setting), and a character who gleefully boasts about being evil, and a character who we know demonstrates very rapid/extreme emotions and expressions of hate/outrage... Yes, I can absolutely see this song as the exact sort of hatred Sir Pentious would level at somebody who’s slighted him. And Alastor blew way the hell past “slighting” him. Alastor, without exaggeration, has ruined his life (afterlife?) and over fifty years later Sir Pent is still unsuccessfully struggling to get back up to the level he was at before he even met Alastor. Right now, Sir Pentious really and truly and deeply despises Alastor.

A song like this—sheer, frothing, unrestrained, vengeful contempt—tells you a whole lot about what kind of emotions Sir Pentious is capable; and it tells you a whole lot about the kind of effect Alastor’s actions have had on him, to inspire this level of reaction from someone who was very close to him for fifteen years and increasingly in love with him for probably a good amount of that time.

Plus, the “You must die! I alone am best!” is such a very, very Sir Pentious sentiment.

So that’s those songs! Again, y’all are free to ask me for my thoughts on more. Yes, most of them will probably be like this, lol.