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allnewalldifferentwildspider · 5 years ago

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Why I Dumped...RWBY

If there’s one thing I’ve learned being in fandom is that the audience is not allowed to dictate creative changes to someone else’s work. That is not your place. The trade-off is that you don’t have to be a member of that audience. Once I learned that, I decided that if a series pissed me off one too many times, I would just straight up dump it. Adios, amigo. Go piss someone else off with your shit stories. There are a hundred other things I could be doing with my time.

When I tell people this, they usually get defensive because sometimes the show I dumped happens to be a show they really like. Which is fine. If it works for you, great. Have fun. But we all have our tastes and personal preferences.

Sometimes that just isn’t enough for people. They have to know why you would insult them (I’m not and neither are you) by not liking something they like. I doubt most care. Some people just want to be offended. However, there have been some people who are genuinely curious. Usually people who are neutral to whatever show I dumped. They have no dog in this fight; they just want to see my train of thought.

So you asked for it and here it is. This is my new blog post series where I talk about why I dumped a series. Let’s see if my story and logic will help you see things from my perspective. Let me be clear, I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind. This is just the story of why I made this decision. If you like this series good for you. I don’t. It’s my opinion and I’m allowed to have one same as you.

We’re going to start off big with RWBY.

For me, RWBY started off as one of those things I kinda heard about on the internet, but never really knew what it was. Then it was on Neftlix and I decided to check out what it actually was. It was a CGI webseries made by the same company that did Red VS Blue led by the guy who did those weird Dead Fantasy videos on YouTube. I watched the first two volumes (because they just can’t be called seasons. We have to be all special and shit) and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I guess my brain needed time to process it. I watched it again with my brother and then I started volume three on my own. After the volume three finale, I stopped watching and just kept tabs on the show before losing interest completely. There are several reasons that just piled up together so let’s just start at the beginning.

I just don’t think the show is very good.

It was a fucking chore to watch volume one again with my brother. Like holy crap, why wasn’t the show this bad the first time I saw it? Was it going to suck this hard with every viewing? (SPOILER ALERT: The answer is yes.) A lot of the character models look really pale. The animation can be wonky or jittery. The voice acting goes from bad to passable. The pacing is wack. The story is barely told. We spend way too much time on Jaune even though we already have FOUR main characters we have to be tackling. And this is a pet peeve of mine, but they gave names to things that already have names.

semblance = super power

aura = energy

Grimm = monsters

Why won’t anyone just call super powers super powers?

Anyway, those were my initial thoughts. A recurring thought I have about RWBY is, “The idea is adequate but the execution is lacking.” Someone asked me what that meant. Really? Really? You don’t know what words mean? Google it. Your ideas are okay, but the way you’re doing them sucks.

So if I hated the show so much, why did I stick with it after volume one? I liked the characters. I fell in love with Yang. She’s all my favorite parts of female characters put together in one awesome package. A blonde busty badass babe that beats a bunch of baddies? Sign me the fuck up. (Alliteration is fun, kids.) Thanks to some really good fan art, I also started to ship Arkos, Renora, White Rose and Roman Ice Cream (or gelato or partners in crime or whatever it’s called). I wanted to see more Yang and I wanted to see if I would get a payoff after investing so much time.

I didn’t.

youtube

The story goes all over the place. It introduces a bunch of new ideas but never sticks around to develop one. I’ve lost track of how the world works and what our goals are. They created side videos called, “The World of RWBY” that explains that shit. That’s another sign of bad writing. Supplemental material to understand what is going on in the story isn’t fun; it’s homework. More importantly, I shouldn’t have to. It should be organically in the story itself. But it wasn’t because this crew doesn’t know how to. It’s just not there.

Pyrrha’s Death

The main reason I stopped watching after the season three finale. I understand that everyone wants to do their own version of Empire Strikes Back or Avengers: Infinity War. The big battle where the good guys lose. I have several problems with this though.

1. I agree with Linkara that the only reason you should kill a character is if you’ve ran out of stories to tell with that character. Cheap drama should not be your goal. The problem with shock value is that it only lasts for a second.

2. You should never kill a fan favorite. That’s how you lose audiences i.e. money. You don’t sell your golden goose, and you don’t kill your cash cow.

I don’t believe that Pyrrha had ran out of stories to tell with her character. Pyrrha was killed just to further Jaune’s story arc which sucks because I barely liked Jaune. I shipped Arkos because I wanted good things for Pyrrha, and really, who doesn’t?

This unfortunately common trope is Stuffed into the Fridge, where female characters are killed for the sole purpose of a male character’s story. It doesn’t matter if Pyrrha was the best warrior in the class or had friends who could have helped her or she could have just ran away or anything really. Pyrrha, my second favorite character, was killed off to jump start Jaune’s character development. Fuck you, Rooster Teeth. And the worst part is, I heard that this was always the plan for Pyrrha. If you have to rely on a trope from 1994, you’re probably not a good writer.

I cancelled my Crunchyroll subscription, and a few people told me to get the fuck over it.

No. My time. My money. Not interested.

Yang wasn’t ‘for me,’ apparently

This one has a little less to do with the show and more with the fandom (or FNDM, because we have to be all special here). Like I said earlier, I fell in love with Yang. She became my number one waifu instantly. She had everything I liked. Big boobs, long legs, blonde hair, fiery personality, loved to kick ass, loved martial arts, had a great zest for life. It’s like that song lyric, “You are everything I want ‘cause you’re everything I’m not.” I know it’s super embarrassing but I would fantasize about being a character in RWBY and being Yang’s boyfriend. Whenever I would work out I would say it was because I was training to be Yang’s husband. I know it’s lame, but that’s how enamored I was.

Hell, Yang was the reason I even considered watching RWBY in the first place. I only discovered her thanks to that episode of Death Battle where she beat Tifa.

Then bumblebee happened.

People on tumblr have this thing where they like to decide what someone else’s character’s sexuality and gender is regardless of the canon. Do whatever you want. The problem was that I am a straight, cis, heterosexual Hispanic male with a tumblr account who likes a character who mostly shipped with another female character. So whenever I try to get matchups or headcanons or imagines, I’m usually ignored. I’m a big boy. I can handle that. What does get under my skin is people going out of their way to tell me that Yang isn’t for me. Like I’m not allowed to like her. When you’ve already lived most of your life with other people telling you that the things you want were never really for you, that sorta thing kinda hits you in the wrong side of the feels. Yang is for bumblebee and bumblee shippers only. I’m over it, but still not cool.

Now I’m hearing that Rooster Teeth might make bumblebee canon to appease the fans. No artistic integrity. I guess I was wrong. The audience is allowed to dictate creative changes if you’re Rooster Teeth. It doesn’t help that Blake is my least favorite character in the series.

I was upset when Adam cut off her arm in the end of volume three. It didn’t help that it was the same episode that Pyrrha died. Two birds with one stone and all that. I’m glad somebody made a supercut of Yang’s volume four story on YouTube. That was good to watch. It was kinda like Korra’s story in the beginning of Book Four (ugh, just call them seasons!) except with a fraction of the talent.

I haven’t watched anything beyond that, but I have heard of a few things. I’m glad Adam is dead, but that’s about it.

So that’s mostly why I dumped RWBY. Sorry if it was too much, but thanks for reading. Do I miss the show? Not really. I do miss Pyrrha, Yang, and the fan art. Will I ever go back to RWBY? Sorry but no. That’s not how that works. The damage has been done.

tl;dr version

I dumped RWBY because:

I didn’t think it was very good to begin with.

They killed my second favorite character for a shit reason.

My favorite character isn’t ‘for me’ according to everyone else.

#why i dumped #rwby #anti rwby #yang xiao long

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moocha-muses · 7 years ago

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Replies, I Could Write Songs about Baby Animals all Day

EDIT: What is happening to my formatting? Is anyone else seeing this? I do not know how to fix this.

@tamtam-go92 replied to your photoset:“And the cow in the cow field haaaas a baaa-by/And...

Oh I love that Translation! Maybe one day I’ll Sing it to my children XD only need to find a good way to translate it to german xD

That is seriously one of the nicest things anyone’s every said to me! There’s no way my college German is up to the task of translation, but here are some extra verses:

“The piglet in the pigpen has a baby/The mommy of the piglet is a pig”

“The goat in the banyard has a baby/the baby of the nanny is the kid”

It’s a pretty easy format to freestyle over.

@ejsims replied to your photoset: “Bolt A onto slot B, turn twice, tap once-” “-put...

Haha I immediately sang that in my head

@sogoshableuniverse replied to your photoset: “Bolt A onto slot B, turn twice, tap once-” “-put...

Haha! I caught that. :D

You guys get me.

Replies to @nekosayuri, @didilysims, @renorasims, and @holleyberry under the cut:

nekosayuri replied to your post: Replies, What I’ve Gleaned from All This is that I...

Oh well, yea, recategorising things is a must. xD you know how many things I had to move from deco or change shoe sound or slave or– yea, but changing the colours is a bit more annoying. I realise I wrote always, but I really only do it on colours that are too bright to my liking or too dark to my liking XD so far I left your stuff alone though :D

Flattery will get you everywhere, she says, with the firm knowledge that she has almost never posted anything with textures she made herself.

I have good taste, though! nekosayuri replied to your post: Replies

Just gotta download those shelves and try until I get it :D my grocery shops shall look awesome too!

I believe in you!

The thing I like about cute grocery stores is that they encourage me to actually go and out and buy groceries. I like the realism. It’s not something my game usually has!

didilysims replied to your photoset: Here’s something I threw together for...

What a good idea! Finding those hidden plumbbobs is so satisfying, isn’t it?

It’s the best kind of treasure hunt. The first time I saw little plumbbobs on the bottom of a Sim’s shoes I was smiling for hours.

renorasims replied to your photoset: Mash-Up time! Jean textures from TS4 and also...

They came out supercute dear! <3

I was honestly surprised by how cute they are, but of course the sneakers helped a ton! Thanks for letting me borrow them! holleyberry replied to your photoset:Mash-Up time! Jean textures from TS4 and also...

More male clothes!

Yeah! High five! I think TS4 bottoms look slightly better with TS4 tops, don’t you?

holleyberry replied to your photoset: Here’s something I threw together for...

Seriously, thank you! I mean, no one will ever see that drain in my story pics, but damn it, I needed that thing. Thanks again for making it.

Sometimes you just need those tiny details for your personal sanity. I understand completely and I’m happy to help.

#replies #tamtam-go92 #ejsims #sogoshableuniverse #nekosayuri #didilysims #renorasims #holleyberry

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willahswrites-blog · 7 years ago

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Supercut

Look at me posting before I planned to :) Title is from Lorde’s song on Melodrama (which is amazing and gives such a vivid picture of a relationship after a breakup). This is the fluffier history of the relationship - next part will tell you allllll about the breakdown. Let me know what you think!

2017

Biting her lip anxiously, she raised shaking hands to her keyboard before immediately putting them back in her lap. The blinking cursor mocked her and her inability to formulate her thoughts. How could she? In the last year, she lost more than she could ever imagine and dealing with the reality of that had been nearly insurmountable. Resting her head in her hand, she looked out her rain splattered window and finally let her mind drift to the box of memories in the back of her head that contained everything related to Harry Edward Styles.

2010

“Bean!” Harry yelled up the stairs of his best friend’s house, “Hurry up! Everyone is waiting to take pictures. Your mum is about to have a cow if you don’t get down here!”

“Christ Almighty,” she muttered, coming down the stairs, “You all need to relax. A girl only goes to so many school formals in her life and maybe, just maybe, she’d like to look nice for them!”

As she descended the stairs in her navy chiffon dress, Harry froze as a wave of unfamiliar feelings washed over him. Had she always been this beautiful? Wasn’t she still the same girl who used to chase him around the backyard, playing tag? Certainly this princess standing in front of him couldn’t be the same human as his best friend.

“Well,” she said, giving a little twirl, “How do I look?”

Eyes wide, Harry hesitated before clearing his throat, “Uh, you look nice, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes and patted his cheek while she walked out the front door “Thanks for the confidence boost, Haz.”

Watching as she greeted the members of his and her families, Harry mentally kicked himself. He guessed? Of course she looked nice. She looked more beautiful than anything he had ever seen, he just didn’t know how to tell her.

2012

Wiping the bar in front of her for the millionth time, she lamented the fact that she had three more hours left in her shift at the pub. Normally, she loved working here and interacting with the regular patrons, but she had gotten stuck with the dead shift. The pub would be virtually empty until the very end of her scheduled time. That combined with the fact that her best friend was finally, finally coming home today made her antsy and frustrated.

Since Harry had left to audition for the X Factor, their relationship had changed; it was inevitable. They tried their best to keep in touch as regularly as they could, but when one person was juggling a job and a full university course load and the other was ⅕ of the world’s most popular boyband, it didn’t leave much time for quality interactions.

When the bell above the door jingled, her heart leapt from her chest at the sight of his familiar curly head. Just as she began to rush around the counter and jump into his arms, she froze at the sight of the tall blonde for whom he had paused to hold the door. Her heart, once about to fly out of her chest, immediately dropped to her feet. She had, of course, heard the rumors about the two of them that had been flying around the globe, but without confirmation directly from her green eyed best friend, she hadn’t believed them. Seeing the two of them walk in hand in hand, soft smiles upon their faces, made a gnawing feeling grow in her chest.

She shook her head in an attempt to rid herself of the feeling. He was her best friend, not her boyfriend. He had no idea that, now that they were older and more mature, she had begun to wonder if she loved him. She had no claim over him; no reason to be jealous of the beautiful superstar who appeared to have captured his heart. Ignoring the pain in her chest, she quickly pasted on a smile and walked over to greet them both. Best friend, not boyfriend, she repeated in her head, best friend, not boyfriend.

2013

Laughing next to his mother, they watched as his now official stepfather and his best friend danced wildly to an old Motown song in the middle of the reception. Anne looped her arm through Harry’s bent elbow.

“My son,” Anne began with a sly smile, “You know how you told me you’d do whatever I wanted to make this day perfect?”

Harry chuckled and looked down at her confused, “Yes…”

“Well, few things would make me happier than I am right now, but I can think of one,” Anne replied

“Let me know and it’s yours Mumma,” Harry said squeezing her arm in his

“Go ask that little Bean to dance and finally tell her how you really feel.”

Harry whipped his head down to look at his mother in disbelief, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh don’t be silly, Harry. I’ve known since you walked in from that game of hide and seek that she was going to turn your world upside down in the best way. She broke up with that dolt she was dating a few months ago and unless you have something you need to inform me of, you’re both single at the same time. Take advantage of it. Let yourself be happy” Anne finished with a pat to his cheek

Harry shook his head with a soft smile. He should’ve known there was no hiding his feelings from his mother. With one last squeeze of Anne’s hand, he made his way toward his best friend, silently thanking the gods that the song had changed to something slower.

“Hey,” he said holding his hand out to her, “Best man duties include dancing with all the bridesmaids,”

She laughed, “Well, who am I to stand in the way of your duties?”

He took her hand in his and pulled her closer by her hip. She immediately wrapped her free hand around his shoulders and they began to sway softly to the music. Feeling the butterflies in his stomach intensify, he almost worked up the courage to say something when he heard her soft voice.

“H?”

Harry hummed in response, looking down at her.

“D-do you…” she trailed off biting her lower lip.

“Do I?” Harry prodded when she remained silent for a few moments.

She immediately shook her head “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”

Harry smiled, “It can’t be more stupid than the time I saw you in your costume for the year 3 Christmas pageant.”

A blush spread across her cheeks and she rolled her eyes, “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“No,” he chuckled before turning serious, “Now what’s on your mind?”

He felt her ribs expand as she took a deep breath, “Do you ever think about me?”

“Of course I think about you, Bean. You’re my best friend.”

She momentarily stilled at the word ‘friend’ and smiled tightly up at him. Relief flooded her as she noticed the song change. “Just making sure you haven’t forgotten me, big shot. I’m going to go get another drink. Thanks for the dance, your duty has been fulfilled.”

Harry cursed himself for his stupid mouth as he watched her rush out of the reception. He noticed instantly that Anne had locked her bewildered gaze on him. He shrugged in response and she nodded her head toward the door, wordlessly telling him to chase after her. Harry’s feet carried him as fast as they could along the path she had taken out of the reception and into the gardens behind the old, brick building. His eyes found her immediately, sitting inside the gazebo and he didn’t have to see her face to know that she was fighting back tears.

“Haz, I need a minute alone,” she said thickly as she heard him approach, her back still to him.

“You’re all I think about. I’ve been in love with you for years,” he rushed out

She stood up and whipped around to face him, “What?”

Harry took a step closer, growing in his confidence, “Bean, I’m in love with you. You’re my best friend. You make everything feel like home. I knew I loved you the moment you all but demanded that I played hide and seek with you but that love turned into crazy, all consuming, in love with you over the past few years. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

A small smile played on her face, “I do believe that I gave you a choice on whether or not you wanted to play.”

With one more large step, he was finally in reach of her and he immediately took hold of her hips. “The minute I saw you, I knew I would never have a choice when it came to you.”

Circling her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer. Just as his lips were about to meet hers, she whispered “I’m pretty in love with you too, you know.”

2015

Harry sighed as the door to his hotel room shut and he was finally alone. The past week had been emotional and tumultuous as One Direction went from five members to four. Harry was dealing with conflicting feelings ranging from confusion to betrayal and rage to despair. He had been in constant contact with his family and his girl throughout everything but all he really wanted was for her to hold him in the large bed he was sprawled out in. No matter how much he wanted or needed it, he could never ask her to drop everything and fly thousands of miles away just for a cuddle. Blinking back tears of exhaustion, he reached for his phone. If he couldn’t be held by her, at least he could see her face.

Just as he was about to hit the button to call her, there was a knock on his door. Groaning, he got up and trudged to open it. Glancing quickly through the peephole, he nearly sobbed in relief at the sight of her on the other side of the door.

After fumbling momentarily with the lock, Harry flung the door open, hauled her into his arms, and shut the door once again with surprising swiftness.

“How are you here?” Harry mumbled into her shoulder

“Haz, don’t you know by now? I’ll always be here when the world turns upside down.”

2017

A car horn outside snapped her back to the present and she squeezed her eyes shut willing the tears to stay in her eyes. How had something so wonderful and all consuming become something so broken and tragic? Just as quickly as the loving memories of their relationship had come to her, they were replaced with the ones that haunted her; the memories of the final few weeks of their relationship where her best friend had become a stranger and her heart had been broken beyond recognition.

Wiping the tears from her face and setting her jaw, she finally was able to raise her hands to the keys of her computer and send her message.

I’m sorry. I changed my mind. I can’t go down this road again. Be well.

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles blurb #one direction #one direction fanfiction #harry styles fanfiction

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raleightatum · 7 years ago

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Lorde Wrote the Perfect Party Album

On “Liability,” the standout piano ballad halfway through Melodrama, Lorde (the stage name of 20 year-old Ella Yelich-O'Connor) describes coming home from a breakup and falling into the arms of the only love she’s got left: herself. The interior design of Lorde’s possibly-autobiographical home in Auckland is up for debate, but as for me, I see her returning to an older Victorian number on a quiet street, old married couples and quiet loners up and down the aisle of row houses, with huge tall windows and open, creaky wood floors. I feel good about my vision of Lorde’s place, and go ahead and figure out yours while you can, because this is where the 20 year-old pop star keeps you for this dazzling forty-minute documentary of an album. A stranger walking by, looking up just long enough to catch a glimpse of a girl dancing alone, caressing her cheek, crying, screaming, partying, dancing -- the album produced as if we were hearing the music as sidewalk passersby, with Lorde playing the piano by herself, alone in the dark.

A quick runthrough of Lorde’s second studio album -- or a singles-heavy radio jaunt -- might lead you to believe that Lorde has a firm grasp on the age-old dilemma for twentysomething introverts: should I stay in or go out? The album’s first two singles (“Green Light” and “Liability”) offer decisive polarities: the former rages, the latter hunkers down. But on Melodrama, she does plenty of both, her possibly-Victorian home working as a hub for parties, Uber pickups, and morning cleanups, hallowed ground for the holy and the horror. Lorde seems not to have mastered this internal yanking and pulling of partying or not, but instead chases her whims to their full extents -- parties and painful piano ballads.

Home is ostensibly where we are the safest. We have, after all, the keys to our homes, the alarm code, blinds over the windows. The paintings and throw pillows and television and liquor cabinet are all arrayed just so to protect us -- we have, those of us without roommates, chosen this particular setup because it makes us feel some measure of safety. It is odd, then, to remember that home is where we encounter most starkly the terror, the horror, and the fucking melodrama that Lorde sings so earnestly about. When we’ve just been told that we’re too much, or perhaps not enough, and it all ends, we don’t go file into the queue at Blue Bottle, wander through the aisles at a bookstore, or fling ourselves onto a barstool at a pub (or at least we don’t at first): we collapse into our beds, or onto linoleum kitchen floors, or wilt into the carpet right in front of the stereo speakers. Home is, most precisely, where the horror is. Home is where we scream, where we cry; we slam the doors in our home, break glass in our home, where we kick people out and drag people in.

On Melodrama, Lorde lets us all into her home.

The album opens with Lorde hopping into a friend’s car, flying through a “Green Light,” doing her makeup on the way to a bar. The track is the first single, and it’s a racing, chanting thing that pulls us right back into the Lorde universe: jaunty choruses and tongue-only-slightly-in-cheek wishes for ill upon exes (“those great whites they have big teeth / hope they bite you”), but a kind of hopeful fist-pumping that’s a perfect way to start the night.

Whatever happens after Lorde sails through those green lights is documented on Melodrama, and ends, well, perfectly, with “Perfect Places,” as if the entirety of the album is a day in the life of Lorde.

“Sober” brings the party back to the house, and there’s dancing and drinks and an appropriately-in-her-head Lorde, wanting just to dance out the many questions (“can we keep up with the ruse?”; “what will we do when we’re sober?”). Lorde knows “in the morning (she’ll) be dancing with the heartache,” and that her efforts to pretend she doesn’t care are false, but “Sober,” and Melodrama as a whole, and life on the earth as a human, has this inevitability, this beating presence, this insistence on taking life as it comes, this refusal to confuse self-deprecation for self-shame. Lorde knows it’s time to dance with the truth -- but sometimes the truth is the music's too loud and the conversation will have to wait until the morning.

“Homemade Dynamite” feels like a beer run, a keep-the-party-going callback to “Royals,” but one that drops us off at “The Louvre” and “Liability,” back at the doorstep of the house, suddenly gone quiet, our singer sobered up and gone wistful alone in her living room scattered with plastic cups. These two tracks feel like Lorde at her wisest, her wittiest (“they’ll hang us in the Louvre / down the back, but who cares / still the Louvre,” which pulled me straight to Lonely Island’s “doesn’t matter had sex!” from, well, “I Just Had Sex”), her most willing to share. “The Louvre’s” muffled, spacy chorus is Lorde reminding herself to “broadcast the boom, boom” an earnest self-call to vulnerability, so that others might quietly dance too. This song, along with its partner, “Liability,” are the songs that you or I or Lorde might have been dancing to alone, a lamp and a couple candles lit, strangers looking in at these private moments of cracking, celebration, and devastating beauty. “The Louvre” ends with this gorgeous ninety second guitar plodding, and the raw “Liability” might as well be a live video of Lorde writing this song in her bedroom at four in the morning, spilling with all sorts of beautiful moments, the stuttering “e-na-na-na-everyone” from the chorus, the scooping “then they get bored of me” in the second verse, the v-sound at the end of the last “get you wild make you leave” that I’ve listened to on three different sets of headphones to figure out if the crackling is my speakers, her mic, or (my hope), a heaving, crying spit of saliva that they left in. The dead of night in a Lorde album is a vulnerable place to be.

In the dead of night, if Lorde can possibly fall asleep, maybe she dreams, and “Hard Feelings/Loveless” is that dream, a montage, a remembrance, a drifting through those nothing moments in relationships that turn out to be everything -- grocery shopping, sitting in a running car in front of your house. Lorde is having what they call hard feelings, and singing about it over and over in the chorus, and it does to the listener what it does when you, say, repeat the word “cow” over and over (cow, cow, COW, cow? It’s a funny word), repeating something enough times to question it, to reframe it, so that it starts to sound weird and thus can actually be listened to and heard for what it is: we say we’ve got hard feelings when we’re pissed off at someone, and so that becomes the definition (hard feelings, n: the act of being pissed off at someone). But Lorde’s insistence on speaking these hard feelings remind us that this is no compound word, no standalone term: hard modifies feelings. Feelings are difficult. The swooping, grating metallic strings of the bridge whoosh and crash through to dismantle the otherwise safe song, a twisting, beautiful interlude that is itself hard to listen to, hard to feel.

The semi-song “Loveless” that emerges after the industrial interlude of “Hard Feelings” is, at first, an unusual tack-on to the original song, a playful, childlike chant of “l-o-v-e-l-e-s-s” and a corner-of-the-mouth smile that says “we’re all fucking with our lover’s heads,” a mouth that you’re gonna wanna tape shut (“Writer In the Dark” echoes this warning to not fuck around with someone who’s got a microphone and a following) this playful grinning and fucking-with just one of the many ways Lorde is able to get through the night alone, but after the grins and games of this latenight memory, we find our impure heroine back at home, the house lights on, cleaning up the champagne glasses.

“Sober II (Melodrama)” is a harsh, startingly gorgeous track, as if Lorde, Max Richter, and The Weeknd threw an afterparty in the same top-floor motel suite where Frank Ocean sang about “Pyramids.” Part One of the song (“Sober”) wonders what we’ll do when we’re sober, and concludes we’ll be with heartache in the morning. But “Sober II (Melodrama)” doesn’t wait until then, jolting you from sickly sweet hungover sleep, hurling construction crew lights on the terror and trauma, the carnage of the night before. This song is bittersweet, and it goes.

Melodrama, unlike many of its contemporaries, resists the urge to indulge itself, and (if you just go ahead and count “Hard Feelings/Loveless” as two songs like I think you should) features none of the epic nine-minute tracks we’ve come to expect. Many of the songs (“Liability,” and “Sober II (Melodrama),” perhaps) stop even shorter of what you feel like you want it to be, as Lorde gets us wild and makes us leave to the next song. But then, there in the lazy long afternoon of the album, in a regathering of hope after the traumatic night before, Melodrama goes there, on two otherwise perfectly-fine songs, “Writer In the Dark” and “Supercut,” the latter pushing and pulling (Lorde’s raw vocal singing of the chorus from what sounds to be, like, the floor of her bathroom) into this Eluvium-style stargazy instrumental. It’s in those moments that the album feels tremendous -- the cutting, dazzling touches on songs you weren’t expecting.

I've heard Andy Greenwald, host of The Ringer’s “The Watch” podcast, say that television show finales tell us what the show was about. And in this melodramatic mini-documentary, Lorde tells us, quite explicitly, what the album is about in the album’s penultimate and final songs.

Throughout our night together, Lorde clearly grapples with her impulses, to stay in or go out, to scream or to cry, to dance or to talk it out, where she experiences these lurching yanks between parties and the nights alone that are all too familiar to those of us who have survived life to this point. In the reprise to “Liability,” the singer posits a been-to-therapy bit of insight: “maybe all this is the party.” The part where you pace around with the curtains drawn, drinking a bottle of wine by yourself, the part where your best friend comes over to help you clean up the mess of the night before, the tears and the cries -- maybe all this is the party.

A friend who toured with the indie band mewithoutYou once witnessed two girls approach Aaron, mewithoutYou’s singer, after a show and ask him to pray. My friend said Aaron kind of looked around, bemused, his arms kind of stretching as if to encompass everything around him, and said, “What do you think we’re doing here?” I’d like to think mewithoutYou and Lorde might agree: maybe all this is the party.

Lorde might humbly or courteously resist my label, but the album ends with a perfect song. “Perfect Places” is a last-night-in-town rebirth of the party, a kind of partying that has taken what it’s learned from the night before and is able to put things in context, to understand, because partying without a care in the world (or without an understanding of why we’re partying) is fun, but understanding the cocktail of reasons why you might want to spend your night off your face and throwing your head back and dancing anyway: there is some definite mewithoutYou, maybe-all-this-is-the-party wisdom and beauty to that.

Lorde’s grand finale is a wistful creed for those who would seek out the rooftop parties, the magical 3-a.m.-on-the-porch-conversations, the perfectly blissed-out moments (“Can we pray with you, Aaron?”) above all else, the longing for parties and perfect places when, well, it’s all the party. Lorde herself hopped onto the Genius annotation of the song and said that this dance-through-the-ambiguity, “can’t stand to be alone” partying is what Melodrama is about: “I’m partying so much because I’m just dreading sitting at home by myself hearing my thoughts hit the walls.” And so Lorde brings us the good word that thoughts hitting the walls are a party just like headstands banging the walls are too (“Hooking up...is fun but sad sometimes too!”).

The song dances along, takes someone home, and takes off all their clothes, as if the song was a regathering of the album, a recap of the long night we’ve just spent with Lorde. If all this is a party, we’ve all been invited, all of us young and ashamed, hardly able to stand being alone, and so we all dance ahead, “trying to find these perfect places.”

“What the fuck are perfect places, anyway?” Lorde asks, and we remember the dashed champagne glasses, the muted dancing alone, our view from the quiet sidewalk, the kitchen floor collapsing, the post-mortem ride home after a breakup, Lorde’s Melodrama, her Victorian house of horrors. This is where, she’ll tell us, we are anything but safe. But it might just be the perfect place for a party.

#lorde #melodrama

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swipestream · 6 years ago

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Sensor Sweep: David Lindsay, Robots, Hollow City, H. Beam Piper, Jonah Hex

Lit-Crit (Jewish Review of Books): It’s a bit surprising to come across Harold Bloom’s confession that the literary work that has been his greatest obsession is not, say, Hamlet or Henry IV, but a relatively little-known 1920 fantasy novel. After all, Bloom is our most famous bardolater. When I took an undergraduate class with him at Yale, he announced his trembling bafflement before Shakespeare’s greatness in almost every lecture. In the course of his career, Bloom has named a handful of other literary eminences who compel from him a similar obeisance—Emerson, Milton, Blake, Kafka, and Freud are members in this select club—but one does not find David Lindsay on this list.

Writing (McSweeneys): I had a whole gaggle of 100-point bucks in my sights, sleeping peacefully on their feet, like cows. The way they were lined up, I could take down the whole clan in a single shot of gun, clean through their magnificent oversized brains. That’d be enough (deer) meat to last Nora and the baby through the harsh Amarillo winter. I shifted my weight in my hidey spot, snapping a twig and pouring more pepper on the fire by muttering, “God dammit all to hell.”

Gaming (Modiphius): Conan the Brigand is the complete guide to the nomadic brigands of the Hyborian Age, providing the gamemaster and player characters with all the resources to run campaigns that embrace the path of the brigand, or are affected by it. Here within these pages are all the resources needed to bring to life this outlaw world!

New material to expand your Conan campaign, with brigand-themed castes, stories, backgrounds, and equipment, allowing you to create your own unique brigands, nomads, and raiders.

Science Fiction (Brian Niemeier): The Unz Review shows how the Right all too often rushes to enshrine earlier Leftist subversion simply because it precedes current Leftist subversion.

This time, the subject of misguided right wing hagiography is John W. Campbell, Jr.

Alec Nevala-Lee, an Asian-American science fiction writer, has here written something remarkable: an intentionally PC multi-biography that nevertheless manages to be well-informed and informative, well-written and compulsively readable.

Science Fiction (Unz.com): Alec Nevala-Lee, an Asian-American science fiction writer,[2] has here written something remarkable: an intentionally PC multi-biography that nevertheless manages to be well-informed and informative, well-written and compulsively readable. It’s the first substantive biography of John W. Campbell, Jr., the man – or, as we’ll see, some would insist on “the white male” – who basically invented modern science fiction; and that last point means that to do so properly, we have to take into account the three men – yes, again, white males – whose writing careers he promoted in order to do it.

Fiction (DMR Books): The Ivory Trail was Talbot Mundy’s fifth novel and his most widely reviewed book up until that time. It was serialized in Adventure magazine in early 1919 under the title On the Trail of Tipoo Tib and then published in book form by Bobbs-Merrill later that year. It received a largely positive reception but was quite different from his previous books in that it was set entirely in East Africa, amid Mundy’s old hunting grounds.

Tolkien (Pages Unbound): I first picked up Tolkien when I was very young (sometime in elementary school). Some fantasy had come into my hands—some book or another, or perhaps the original Final Fantasy game on the NES. My mom said, “You know, if you like that, there is a book you would like . . .” I’m not even sure if my mom has ever read The Hobbit, which is a testament to its cultural cache. I did not immediately acquiesce. I was a pretentious child—before I became a man and put away childish things like the fear of seeming childish—and I initially rebuffed my mom’s efforts. But a book is a book, and I didn’t have so many laying around in those days, so I didn’t wait long before reading it.

Science Fiction (G. Scott Huggins): Robots. I have never really understood why there is an obsession with stories about robots. As with fae, I understand the attraction of having robots exist in a story. What I don’t really get is stories about robots. Robots as the reason for the story. Yet many, many people love stories about robots. Isaac Asimov, arguably, built his career on an obsession with robots. I can’t think of any other piece of future technology — with the possible exception of spaceships — that has inspired such a wealth of stories about them. Can you imagine a whole subgenre of SF devoted to, say, laser guns?

Fiction (Wasteland and Sky): Super powered cop Adam Song has dedicated his life to the law. In the military and the police force, Adam ruthlessly protects the innocent.

But this time he’s killed the wrong bad guy. Now the local drug lord’s son is dead, and the boss is out for Adam’s blood. Even his secret identity won’t keep him safe. The police department hangs him out to dry, his years of exemplary service forgotten. Adam must take justice into his own hands to keep his family safe.

Fiction (Fiction Fan Blog): When a young lady comes to Sherlock Holmes for advice, what at first seems like an intriguing mystery soon turns into a tale of murderous revenge. Mary Morstan’s father disappeared some years ago, just after he had returned from colonial service. He had been in the Andaman Islands, one of the officers charged with guarding the prisoners held there. A few years after his disappearance, Miss Morstan received a large pearl in the mail, and every year for the six years since then, she has received another.

Gaming (Walker’s Retreat): Following the whinefest by Fake Game Journalists over Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Oliver Campbell of the Metro City Boys put together a supercut of how he prevailed over the game. As the saying goes, “The master failed more times than the amateur ever attempts.” That’s what it takes to beat this game: persistence.

Every game of this sort has similar requirements of persistence to succeed. Oliver here goes over how he did that. Skip to 14:10 for the lesson, taken from Rocky Balboa.

Acting (Chris Lansdown): Thanks to frequent commenter Mary, I recently learned about the existence of William Gillette, the first man to play Sherlock Holmes, mostly on the stage but also in a silent film.

Born in 1853, in Connecticut, William Gillette was a stage director, writer, and actor in America. In 1897, his play, Secret Service, was sufficiently successful in America that his producer took it to England.

Gaming (Rampant Games): I played over 70 hours of No Man’s Sky when it was originally released. Unlike others, I wasn’t disappointed. Yeah, it got repetitive and lonely at times. There was a starkness to it that no amount of lush procedural visuals could overcome. It’s changed a lot since then, graphically, in gameplay, and it has true multiplayer. Sadly, I haven’t had the time to devote to it. Yet.

Fiction (Razored Zen): This is a collection of stories selected by Joe Lansdale, and including in introduction by Lansdale. Before I talk about the individual stories, I’ll give my overall viewpoint. I’d generally say I enjoyed most of the tales but the title is very misleading. A better title might have been, “Tales of a New West,” or something along those lines. Most of these tales are nowhere near traditional westerns. Lansdale is clear in the introduction that that was what he was looking for but the title certainly would have led me to expect a different sort of collection.

Writing (Rawle Nyanzi): Larry Correia, the Mountain Who Writes, is a personal hero of mine. His advice to writers is to be prolific: write lots of stuff, then release that stuff, then write some more, release some more, and so on. I am often in awe of how much he writes and publishes, and I wish that I could reach even one-tenth of his yearly output. To him, “writer’s block” simply isn’t a thing — he presses on, no matter what.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): Henry Beam Piper was born on this day, March 23, in 1904. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1964.

Piper is not well known today, and that’s a shame. In his lifetime, he was best known for two series, The Paratime Police and the Terro-Human Future History, as well as the stand-alone short story “Omnilingual”. His best known novels include the Little Fuzzy subseries of his future series and Space Viking, which was a major influence on Jerry Pournelle.

Fiction (John C. Wright): Abraham Merrit is one of the foundational authors of speculative fiction, and it is a shame that he is not well remembered. I blame a deliberate effort of John W Cambell Jr and his protegees to undermine the fame of pulp authors in order to glolrify the more nuts-and-bolts fiction following the model of Jules Verne or Buck Rogers.

Now, I like Hard SF or Tech SF as much as the next fan of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, Baxter, &c., but I also like the pulps and their freedom from strict genre restraints, and I hate snobbery in all its forms.

There is no wrong way to have fun.

Fiction (Rich Horton): Today would have been H. Beam Piper’s 115th birthday. His first novels were the two serials discussed below, published in books form as Crisis in 2140 and Uller Uprising. (A version of “Uller Uprising” had actually appeared as part of the Twayne Triplet The Petrified Planet a year earlier.) In addition to those novels, I append a short look at perhaps his most famous story, “Omnilingual”.

Comic Books (Broadswords and Blasters): In 1993, editor Karen Berger at DC Comics forged a new imprint that focused on stories geared at a more mature audience and creator owned works as well. The end result was the creation of Vertigo Comics. Such early titles included, naturally enough, a transfer of already established titles such as Shade the Changing Man, The Sandman,[1] Swamp Thing, Hellblazer,[2] Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Soon after, new titles, both ongoing and limited premiered under this imprint including Neil Gaiman’s Death: the High Cost of Living, the Matt Wagner-helmed Sandman: Mystery Theatre and Peter Milligan’s Enigma.

Sensor Sweep: David Lindsay, Robots, Hollow City, H. Beam Piper, Jonah Hex published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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psychounicorncom · 8 years ago

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Today we had another day in Kyoto, all to ourselves, which was awesome. The rain of yesterday is gone, and we could really explore. Not that it was sunny all day, but it was good weather to be outside. The parents and me went to this super cute little restaurant called Bear, which had -surprise!- a bear theme. There were stuffed animals everywhere and everything had cute little bears on it. An old lady all by herself served us and did her magic in the kitchen, it was too adorable.

Then we walked the Philosophers path, which was an amazing experience. It is probably even more beautiful when the sakura are actually in bloom, but now it was quite amazing too. It was just very peaceful, very lovely, though there were a few streets that were way too touristy. I did buy the cutest little pottery bunny, I fell in love with it right when I saw it and I pray that it will make the trip to the Netherlands okay… I did take a picture of her just in case. It was in a store that was only selling things with bunnies, so awesome, my Chinese zodiac is a bunny (and sometimes cat).

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As my parents are not really into manga, and I am not really into castles, they went to see the castle of Kyoto while I went to the International Kyoto Manga Museum, it was pretty cool, but also not really: the problem is that almost all manga in there is in Japanese, so everybody is reading everywhere, but I can’t understand that (yet?! ;) ). The museum is pretty great, it has a good setup and it has a lot of English info to read, but it is just the manga itself that is usually in Japanese. I was thinking about buying some manga books in the museum store, but they asked 1700 yen for a Death Note volume in English, which is the equivalent of 15 euros, what the?!

Afterwards I went to the station to have some food at Nana’s Green Tea, which is a franchise of ice cream and ramen restaurants here in Japan. I had some really good veggie ramen with a soft boiled egg, seaweed and things that children usually put in their soup, crunchy stuff, it was very lovely. I was reading a book, really enjoying the time alone. Then I went to the temple close to the station, but as I came across a Baskin Robbins I had to get a milkshake, which I could not take to the temple ground. So I decided just to take a few pics and then leave.

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Not just because of my milkshake, also because one of the travel mates I have to share a room with sometimes was very ill and needed some food. Tomorrow she will be flying home again, cause she got sick on day 2 and hasn’t gotten any better. Poor girl. It is very sad to see her leave, though it is very convenient for me as it means I will have a room all to myself the rest of the holiday. The other lady that we share rooms with bought her own room just for Tokyo, so I am lucky. Obviously it does not really feel that good…

By the way, I saw this supercute commercial on television that I wanted to share with y’all:

Superkawaii!

After I brought the ill lady the goodies, I went back to the geisha streets of Kyoto, to shop some more, check out the first sakura trees in Kyoto that were in bloom and it was beautiful. In the evening we had dinner at this French restaurant called Kawa Café. It had a beautiful view on the water, the food was good too, had some vegetable pizza and an amazing chocolate tarte. My parents were enjoying the food too, though they probably were a bit annoyed by me being on my phone half of the evening. Sorry parents, but I had a good goal! I was setting up a bar visit with a local Kyoto guy, named Yuu. He was just done working when I started my main course, so I asked him to wait a bit until I would be ready.

He did and so we met in front of the Disney store at 9. I was a bit late, cause even though no Japanese person really dares to look at me or let alone speak to me, some Japanese guy came up to me when I was rushing, and asked me where I was from, it was so weird and such bad timing. I would always be happy to talk back, but this time I was just stressing out cause I know how much Japanese people value being on time. Anyway, half running I arrived at the Disney store where Yuu was waiting just as we arranged online, and we went to this place called the Rub & Dub, a reggae café in some basement, that was supertiny. It was almost like chilling in someones living room. The bartender yelled something like hello and we sat down at the bar.

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The super enthousiastic yelling guy was behind the bar and he was cooking, making music, dancing, singing along, and having conversations with us. Then there was this guy from somehwere in Europe who started talking to us, and some Japanese business man that seemed a bit out of place, as soon after there was a huge group of way too young students coming in and being all loud. Meanwhile I had a good time with Yuu, we were just talking about all the differences between Japan and Holland, and his life and my life and we were just drinking and it was a good time. Nothing date-ish, nothing awkward, it was just very natural and simple.

Though my father was like: are you meeting some guy in a city, while being alone? My mom was only encouraging me to go out, great stuff. I told them I just wanted out at least one evening with a real Japanese person, instead of just watching them live. Though I had felt a bit bad about this over the past few days: cause I am a person alone and people might get your intentions wrong, especially with a delicate culture such as the Japanese culture, but it was actually very laid back, Yuu works at a hostel so he is pretty internationally minded.

I am really happy that even though I feel like a cow, a viking, someone that does not has anything to offer other people, I had a great evening with a real Japanese person that was actually born and raised in Kyoto. I hope he truly enjoyed himself too, as Japanese people do not really share that easily. The bar was superfun too, a definite recommendation for anyone travelling to Kyoto being into reggae. Be warned though: it is loud, small and you can still smoke inside so please wash your hair right after ;)

At 11:30 I was going back to my hotel, as I have to wake up at 6 o clock tomorrow morning for another day of travel. Yuu and I walked back to the Disney store, we said goodbye and I walked back to the hotel feeling all excited about my great Japan experience. I should be doing more of those spontanious things: they are a real thrill, though they also cost me energy and a bit of stress, they are amazing memories that I can keep forever.

Travel Report Japan – Day 8 – Kyoto Today we had another day in Kyoto, all to ourselves, which was awesome. The rain of yesterday is gone, and we could really explore.

#disney store #japan #japanese #kyoto #meeting a japanese person #reggae #rub a dub #travel report #wanderlust

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